>I think - and I mean this respectfully - that there's 3000 miles of ocean between a lot of us here and the country Woody Guthrie was writing in and about. I'd never heard "This land" until I encountered the Internet.<

I knew it when I was in primary school (West Northumberland), as did just about all of my pals. We're talking late '50s/early '60s here. Folk songs were ubiquitous during my childhood – on the radio, in school, at the Cubs and the Scouts, local concert parties, in the back of the bus. Did I live in a folk oasis?