Jim and Bill et al and I are lucky to live here in DC for the folk scene. But it hasn't happened all by itself. Countless hours of effort by founders of the FSGW and the volunteers who have come after have made it so. From Bruce Hutton's open mikes to the House of Musical Traditions to the Washington Folk Festival it has been a labor of love. I have labored in the trenches since 1975.

Mbo I missed the thread you refer to, but let me say this to you. IMHOP Folklorists and ethnomusicologists, professional and amateur, look backward (I have been accused of this myself). Much of what passes for FOLK MUSIC today was popular music in its day. The music of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family is unquestionably(?) FOLK today, but was POP music yesteryear. The Old Time Music of Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers was POP music in its day. The examples are endless. It is hard to imagine some POP music of today as becoming FOLK, but it may.

When I started my first open mike in the late 70's I asked Joe Hickerson, folklorist of the library of congress and friend about this. He advised me to invite people to play TRADITIONAL music. And to define it so: Music that has passed into the ORAL TRADITION. In that sense, Hank Williams' "Jambalaya" has become TRADITIONAL. How long does it take a piece to become traditional? I don't know, but if pressed I will say 30 years, one generation. So when MBO (and I, by the way) perform "POP" songs, that is the popular music of the day and in so doing pass them into the oral tradition through my son Matthew they have become traditional. Are they FOLK SONGS? Ricky Nelson sang: "If all I sang was memories, I'd rather drive a truck." When Ian and Sylvia sang "Twenty-four hours from Tulsa" was it FOLK or POP?

All of the above is my opinion, clearly. But MBO, please keep doing the POP songs you like, I do, and they just might turn out to be FOLK songs one day. regards, chance.