Quite a few, actually, once I got the thinking about it. When I first got involved with folk music in the early Fifties, Walt Robertson was the biggy around Seattle. For those not familiar with Walt and who missed the thread, take a peek here.

In the early Fifties, Sandy Paton was hanging out in this neck of the woods, learning songs and learning to play the guitar. He was soon to head back East. I ran into Sandy again at the 1960 Berkeley Folk Festival, where he was one of the featured performers (he'd obviously been a busy lad in the intervening years). Sandy dragged me off to a post-concert party where I met and had a chance to talk with two of the other featured performers -- Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl. They did a concert in Seattle not that long before MacColl died (1989), and Peggy has been back at least once since.

I went to the Berkeley festivals in '60, '61, and '64. I'm not sure which festival it was where I met a young Scots lass (not one of the featured performers) who had a headful of ballads and sang them beautifully. Sam Hinton was conducting a workshop on ballad singing and she was in the audience. After asking several very incisive questions, Sam Hinton said, "Obviously, you know more about ballad singing than we here on the panel. Please, come up and join us." Her name was Jean Redpath. She's passed through Seattle a couple of times since.

At the Berkeley Festivals, I met and talked with Charles Seeger, Sam Hinton, Bess Hawes, Almeda Riddle, Marais and Miranda, Mance Lipscomb, and several others I can't recall right now. I saw, but didn't have a chance to talk with Lightnin' Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt, Doc and Merle Watson, The New Lost City Ramblers, Frank Warner, and many others. There were a lot of well-known folk musicians who came to the Berkeley festivals, and plenty of opportunity to meet and talk with them. That was sort of the point.

Pete Seeger, in 1954 in Seattle at a post-concert party and song-fest that lasted until 4:00 a.m., then again in 1957. In 1957, after he did a day-time concert in Bellingham, I had a long conversation with Richard Dyer-Bennet. He was very friendly and encouraging. Guy Carawan was in Seattle for several days in the mid-Fifties, then came back to do a concert in late '57 or early '58. Then again in the '80s. Bob Gibson and Dick Rosmini in 1958. They were in Seattle for about two weeks and we got together several times to gab and swap songs. Joan Baez at another after-concert party in 1962, then I talked to her again in 1964 at the Berkeley Folk Festival. Rolf Cahn in Berkeley in 1959, then he came to Seattle to sing and do some workshops in the early Sixties. Barbara Dane and Dick Rosmini (again) in the early Sixties. They opened for Bob Newhart at the Orpheum Theater. Dick got me in backstage, then afterward, we all went to a party at a U. of W. frat house that one of my guitar pupils belonged to. We sang until the wee, small hours, then we all went out and had breakfast. Theodore Bikel. The day after his concert at the Seattle Center Opera House in '62 (Seattle World's Fair) he came to a record store in the University District for a record signing. For about two hours a half-dozen of us sat around and gabbed with him. Fascinating guy! Dyer-Bennet did three concerts during the World's Fair then came and sang with us at one of the Sunday afternoon concerts at the United Nations Pavilion.

In the early '60s, Jesse Fuller sang one weekend at a coffeehouse in Seattle. One of the waitresses (a non-singing folk music enthusiast) hired him to sing at a party she was throwing, and many of us had a chance to hear him up close and talk with him. I remember him saying. "I gotta laugh at some of these college kids singin' about bein' a 'steel drivin' man.'" Then he chuckled and added, "'Cause I have drove some!"

In the late '70s (or was it the early '80s?) several people, including my wife Barbara and I, drove up to Bellingham to take in Gordon Bok's concert there, and we met and talked with him at the after-concert party. Gordon did another concert in Seattle in the late '80s, and there was a party and song-fest on a Lake Union houseboat the night before the concert. During the evening, while talking to Gordon, he and I swapped guitars for a few minutes. His was a Santos Hernandez classic, as I recall. Great sounding and nice to play. Mine was a Japanese made classic imported by Jose Oribe and bearing his signed "inspected and approved by" label (it looks exactly like a Jose Ramirez and sounds almost as good!). Gordon played it awhile, then said, "Nice guitar! It has bells in it!"

I consider Merritt Herring a legend. If he isn't, he ought to be. I think he lives in Portland Oregon or thereabouts now, but I first met him at the 1960 Berkeley Folk Festival. During the early '70s he lived on Bainbridge Island, a fairly short ferry-ride (or a very long, cold swim) from Seattle and he came to all the early Seattle Song Circle meetings. I saw him again recently at a Northwest Folklife Festival. Great voice, great guitar, and he sticks pretty close to traditional songs.

I'm sure there were others, but right now I'm suffering from brain-fag and fits of nostalgia. Lots of great musicians out there. . . .

Don Firth