Exactly so, Howard, and that's what I've been trying to tell Conrad all along! The "hoots"—the parties where we all get together in each other's homes and spend an evening sing for our own and each other's enjoyment? They've been going on for years!

And it is NOT a "secret culture." Yes, most of them are in private homes and they are by invitation, but anyone who shows any kind of interest, whether they sing or not, invariably gets invited.

We did find out, way back in the early 1950s, that we had to keep them invitation only, otherwise everybody and his cousin's pet chicken who wanted to go to a party on a Friday or Saturday night, BUT who wasn't the least bit interested in folk music, would come to these song fests for the free beer and snacks, and generally disrupt the singing. And there was the occasional person who, for example, didn't have the courtesy to shut up while someone was singing, who would no longer be invited.

Or anybody who made himself or herself just bloody obnoxious.

And therein lies Conrad's problem. He confessed up-thread that he lost all his folk music friends because he kept telling them they were doing it all wrong and trying to shove his ideas down their throats.

No bloody wonder they stopped inviting him!

But a "secret culture?" No way!

Conrad is his own worst problem.

Don Firth