Good to know she made it okay. I hear Buffalo, NY got 2 feet over Christmas and is due for another foot by tomorrow!I know what you mean, Rick, about describing the Mudcat. Here's one way I tried to explain to a radio host whom I'd sent a note to, thanking him for a wonderful show which featured Mudcatter, John Peekstock, and his wife, Anna, in their band, Telynor.
"Please visit us. We have a thread there on the Forum, today, http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=42083 which alerted us all to your show and the fact that one of our members, John, was going to be on, so several of us listened. It also prompted me to buy their Christmas CD.
"The Mudcat Cafe houses the Digital Tradition, a folksong database with over 8,000 song lyrics and we're working on adding midis to all of those. Folk musicians from all over the world gather there, not just to share music, but also their lives, their triumphs and tragedies and we also make merry with totally riotous of inanity such as http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=11455 "Hokey-Pokey and the Druids."
"We have quite a few well-known members, such as Sandy and Caroline Paton of Folk Legacy Records, Don Firth and Bob Nelson from your own area, Rick Fielding from Toronto, Art Thieme from Chicago, Roy Harris in the UK, Jean Ritchie, who posts as "kytrad," as well as others who prefer to stay incognito.
"Best of all, we share our love of music, and we have created a real community, with such things as a 30 day cross-country trip by an American member and one from the UK, to visit as many Mudcatters as possible, which sparked many more shorter journeys and regular gatherings in the UK, Canada, and here when we've met to make music together. We go above and beyond for one another and hash out tough world issues, as well.
"If it seems I am enthused, you are right. I, and many others, believe the Mudcat to be the best place ever created on the Internet and a model of all of the positive the "web" has to the potential to offer.
"I hope I haven't overwhelmed you with info! Please come take a peek and you'll see what I mean.
"Thanks!"
kat