I occasionally sang "Pretty Saro" at that time, but Judy could have learned it from any number of singers who had recorded it by then. I was somewhat amused at the Clearwater Festival a few years ago to hear Judy introduce "Wild Mountain Thyme" as being a song she had learned from "a little old man in Ireland." When Judy made that first Elektra record, she had never been to Ireland and the MacPeake's rendition was available only in the BBC Recorded Programmes Library or on an obscure 10-inch album in England called "Folksong Today." I've always remembered writing out the words for her in the Green Room at the Exodus, but "a little old man in Ireland" makes a much better story, doesn't it? Not a terribly big deal, one way or another. Jac told me that, when he asked her about her song sources, Judy told him she had learned three of the songs from me, but I know full well that I didn't give her any of the others on that list. "Pretty Saro" would be the only possiblility for the third song.

In those ancient times, we actually sang a number of traditional folk songs in such clubs! Imagine that?

Judy and her then husband, Peter, were living in Boulder when we arrived there to spend the 1959/1960 school year. I had just finished a summer at the Limelite in Aspen, Colorado, and had signed up to tour for National School Assemblies, doing about 15 assembly programs a week in Colorado, Oklahome, Nebraska, Wyoming, and the southwest corner of South Dakota. Boulder was about the best place to settle Caroline and our one-year old son, David, while I rambled all over hellandgone, getting home on weekends only after driving many miles. During the Easter school break, I needed to keep some money coming in, so I got myself booked into the Exodus with Judy, the blossoming young twenty-year-old singer. When I was off to places like Sundance, Wyoming, or Fort Lawton, Oklahoma, and Judy was up in Crystal City, or some such place, Peter and Caroline would often share a babysitter for our David and their Clark, who were about the same age, and go together to hear folks like Ed McCurdy at the Exodus. I had made my Elektra record (an embarrassment to me now), and was asked by Jac Holzman to come back to New York to make a second recording of "ribald sea songs." I gave it a go, but discovered that these weren't lusty old shanties, which I love, but off-color songs of the modern navy -- not my cup of tea. I figured a recording like that would put an immediate end to my school assembly income! "Miss V.D. of Guam" was not the sort of thing the Superintendant of Schools in East Overshoe, Nebraska, would like to hear from the folk artist soon to appear before his fifth graders. Oscar Brand, who was preparing the material for Elektra, ended up recording the songs himself on an album titled Every Inch a Sailor. Remember that gem?

Anyway, it was at this time that Jac told me Judy was making a record for him that would include three songs she had learned from me, and, from that point on, friends, it's history! Her career took off, she and Peter moved to Connecticut (where Peter was a teaching fellow in the English Department at UConn), they split, Peter went to teach in British Columbia (I think it was), and Judy became a folk star. Her life has been quite tragic, as many of you know. It seems to me that the prize she sought proved terribly costly. I ended up living in a small rural community and running an obscure folk music record label. But I've enjoyed a marriage of forty-four blessed years and now have six grandchildren to cherish. I certainly wouldn't trade.

Sandy