Once again, Ron has it right. Context, history and doing the homework about the background for singers and songs and showing the connection not the dissection of folk music, as if you were cutting slices and dices of an expression without seeing the whole deal.

I know what it is because I grew up in it as an outsider and appreciator of the people who I've had the privilege to know in the field and because I listened to each performer, song, event with a different set of ears. I should be in radio doing a folk program but I don't have the time now. Ya' gotta live and survive.

So there are those like Dick Greenhaus who know what's going on here that should be doing it or guys like Joe Hickerson, maybe McCutcheon, who also doesn't have the time, Pete Seeger who did do it and made a tremendous contribution with his Rainbow show on T.V., or Art Theime and for the New England folklore, Captain Kendall. Part of being an educator is knowing how to do that which you are teaching.

Folklore is not just bookish but it's doing it by telling stories, singing songs, saying what you like about it, digging into the traditions and illuminating those patterns that give a folk music its national, cultural and individual art. Also, if you can, writing songs that carry on that tradition.

Where people go wrong is assuming that folk music is "one thing" that defines it and that turns the public off who instinctively know better.