Helen's appearance alone was impressive. A tall, straight-backed, even statuesque, white-haired Jewish lady, dressed in white and loaded with turquoise jewelry, she was clearly a force to be reckoned with.

My favorite Helen story comes from Sandy Paton. Sandy had a visitor who was not very familiar with the Folk-Legacy artists but who claimed to be able to tell a lot about a singer just by listening to them. "Okay," said Sandy, "Tell me about this one." And he played a cut of Helen. "Well," said the visitor, "First of all, I think he's black."