John (Hindsill) I guess this was Guiness book - pages and pages on the "popular" end of folk but a few lines or nothing at all on the interesting traditional or revivalist singers. Lots of Dylan, Joni Mitchell etc but several of my favourite just weren't in at all. A visit to two large bookshops in Exeter today confirmed it - nothing at all today on folk music but lots of stuff on jazz, blues, country, rock and every other genre; really good books too. The Lomax books as far as I know long out of print. I'm very puzzeled why there is nothing to compare with the books by John Chilton, Samuel Charters, Lawrence Cohn etc. The same thing seems to have happened with discographies: there is the very comprehensive "Blues and Gospel Recordings" in two volumes and amazingly researched detail. With folk music it's a list of a few LP's and very incomplete at that: I cold do better from memory alone. Very odd. Is the subject not regarded as worthy of study or is it just too difficult. DrJohn