This may belong below the line. If so, mud elfs, move it.

I don't know what folk music is. I just know what it means to be one of the folks, a relatively non-musical one at that.   It ain't just about the entertainment, and it ain't just about those who can entertaining those who can't.

Let us not forget that folks still exist, and still actually use music to get us through life without thought of performance or entertainment. Here a a few of my own examples. Please, please share your own.


Bookends:   

Sitting in a darkened nursery, rocking slowly, softly singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," to sooth my colicky infant son to sleep. 1:00 am. I lay him gently in his crib, and he remains asleep.

Sitting in a darkened bedroom at 1:00 am, beside a delirious and dying father, softly singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." He calms. I think he is at last asleep. I pause, then hear a raspy and coherently whispered, "Precious. Precious." A bony and feeble hand reaches over the rail of the bed to clasp mine. And soon, he is indeed asleep.

A 17 year old son who loves music, plays drums, and can't carry a tune in a bucket, singing off-key and to himself, as he cleans up his room under threat of death from his old ma - a work song he learned from a recording I had captured of Barry Finn at a late night sing at a Getaway.