Okay, it's just me and I thought I'd attract a discussion that started over on the MUDCAT WOMEN thread. When Terry objected to the Mudcat "women" idea I was harkened back to the long past days of Shula an her song circle here. But this does have some merit.

Annie was asking about women here and their active involvement in playing instruments, singing, and the like. What is definitely true is that through the years as societal "laws" have changed, what a woman could accomplish in any field has also changed....and that includes folk and old time music. Although there was the original "Banjo-Pickin' Girl" for many years the music that we heard was recorded in the main by men and men definitely played the instruments. And yet it isn't the men we owe so much to in keeping the songs alive and passing them through in all of their permutations. Mountain women with families and the women in the Settlement Schools kept the music alive perhaps to a far greater degree than their male counterparts.

I recommend a book to all of you called, Finding Their Voice.....I'll come back with the details later on it. I found though that Annie's question was more than legitimate and even very perceptive in a way as much of the problem still exists.

Spaw