Big Al, I loved what you did! You're a great fingerpicker and imaginative as well.
Your songs are fun.

Even if we are on a different ideological train, I'm sure that if we ever met personally, we would get along famously. You've just made a new fan.

Man, there are some talented folks on Mudcat.

Wish I had something I could show you that I felt good about. Maybe sometime.

Re: Alan Block, he was a Village fixture. There were two sandal shops. One was Alan and the other Elaine Starkman on McDougal. She was a nice lady. At Alan's you could always be caught up in his old time sessions where he would lead with a great fiddle.
I can understand how Rory would be so wonderfully talented, she must have had a terrific musical education from her dad.

Al Meyers, a gentle guy with a sweet tenor voice, and I hung out in those days. I remember we double dated with Elaine Starkman and someone else, can't recall who.
Al was a fixture in the Village. Here are some more names people from that time might remember. Joe Jaffe, a great guitar and banjo player who could sound like Pete Seeger.
Dave Sears was another great banjo picker who sounded pretty close to Pete. Effie Siegerman who I think moved to Australia, an instrumentalist and guitar repair person. Woody Wachtel played old time banjo. I think that Art Rosenbaum, art teacher at the University of Georgia, great old time banjo picker and folklorist was at some of those parties. Micheal Sahl was an expert old time banjo player who predated the Round Peak style. Ray Boguslav played classical guitar and sang well. John Stauber was a fine classical player as well. These folks for me defined the folkie GV scene.   Mike Vidor, the famous film director, King Vidor's son played a mean bluegrass banjo before it was really popular there. Oh and we can't forget Tom Paley who introduced the Hobart Smith fingerpicking "Railroad Bill" to the Village audiences. There was a great guy, Jimmy McDonald, a black singer who I stayed with briefly on Rivington Street in the Lower East Side. Cynthia Gooding was a fine singer of international songs at many of the Village folk parties. That was a rich musical period for revival folk music.

Speaking of bluegrass, it was Pete Seeger who really introduced that style to the Village even though it was enhanced by Roger Sprung. Pete had heard Earl and was taken with the style. (Who wouldn't be?)

If anyone knows of these folks, I would be interested in hearing your take on them. Circa 1953-1960.