You made an admirable defense for "Rise Up Singing," Jack. Certainly, the book has its faults; but it does a better job of what it does than anything else I've seen.

It has 1200 songs, while most other songbooks have lfewer than a hundred.

The price is reasonable - fake books and "Folksinger's Wordbook" (if you can find it) cost almost forty bucks and are neither durable nor portable. Now I admit that the price of Digital Tradition is much better and it has a much better selection of songs, but did you ever try to have a bunch of people gather around a computer screen to sing?

It is widely available - most decent bookstores have at least a couple of copies on the shelf.

OK, now that I've defended it, I'd like to know some alternatives. What other songbooks are available that would be good for song circles and similar gatherings? Any suggestions on how to teach new songs to groups that use "Rise Up Singing" as their basic "hymnal"?

Our song circle in Sacramento always has a few people who bring photocopies of new songs. We have a box of "loaner" copies of "Rise Up Singing." The photocopied songs that prove popular go in the box with the loaner books, so they're available for next month's circle. Seems to work for us.

-Joe Offer-