"Dumbed down by entertainers and recordings!?"

Conrad, REALITY (since you can't seem to find it on your own) is not where you are.

Entertainers who sing folk songs do the MAIN job of spreading interest in folk music. And recordings are probably the best way of spreading the nuts and bolts (words and music) of folk music. The vast majority of songs I know—and the vast majority of songs that MOST singers of folk songs know and sing—are learned from recordings.

You hear a song once at a folk festival or a workshop (free or otherwise) and, even if you have the words on a song-sheet, hearing the tune only once is pretty tenuous. On a record, you can listen to the song over and over (while writing down the words, if they are not on the liner notes or an insert) drills the tune into your memory.

I have learned a lot of songs from song books and collections, like those of the Lomaxes, Cecil Sharp, and Carl Sandburg, but not everyone reads music, so the tunes are closed off to those people.

Recordings are one of the best methods of teaching people songs.

Oh! But of course! You don't want to buy CDs either!

Well, most public libraries have folk music CDs you can check out.

Things are fine here on Earth, Conrad. What planet are you on?

Don Firth