Well, I tuned in to Judy singing "Both Sides Now" and she sounded ab fab--truly, I was astounded at how good she sounded. The one and only time I saw her perform was at her infamous (well, to some of us with memories going back that far) Chicago gig, where the Marines in the front row got up and walked out when she started talking about the trial of the Chicago Seven. Her voice is as crystalline as it ever was, and she still has an amazing amount of her upper range. I don't know how old she is, but I know she is definitely old enough to have lost the upper range--she is a very lucky singer.

But my God, that program was awful--painfully so. I wasn't so embarrassed for Collins, McGuinn, and the Smothers Brothers, they all did fine. Apparently they were the only performers who are currently still enjoying professional music careers. As to the cynicism charge, well...what I found so painful was that PBS asked people who clearly shouldn't be performing in such a public way, to appear on this program. I was embarrassed for the others.

Now, as to this claim that this is how the boomer generation was exposed to folk music, I would have to strongly disagree with that statement. I'm not sure what the hell that music ever was, but it wasn't folk music. I got my television exposure to folk music watching very different music acts than the people on this program. From TV Gospel Hour, to Shindig (artists like Sam Cooke, Everly Brothers, Johnny Cash, Aretha Franklin, Byrds, Kingsmen, Lovin Spoonful, a ton of soul & R & B acts like Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, etc.)

I also was introduced to folk music through tv programming for what was once called "music variety shows" which featured country music acts--from jugband to old time to bluegrass to hillbilly to rockabilly, from Roy Rogers and Gene Autrey and the Sons of the Pioneers, to Porter Waggoner Show to The Johnny Cash Show, Smothers Brothers, The Glen Campbell Show, to K-Tel commercials, etc.

But the "Folk Scare" artists of my youth, with the exception of Judy Collins, Roger McGuinn, Peter Paul & Mary, and the Smothers Brothers, weren't the people on the program in question. I don't really know who those dweebs were, as they were never really on my or my siblings radar musically when we were growing up, except that when "Tom Dooley" came on the radio, we'd turn it down or off.

The American "Folk Scare" artists of my youth were more likely to be seen on the rock/pop musical variety shows on tv. They include artists like Odetta, Seeger, Guthries, Ochs, Baez, Judy Henske, Barbara Dane, Fred Neil, the Farinas, Carolyn Hester, Dylan, Buffy St. Marie, New Lost City Ramblers, Koerner Ray & Glover, Tom Rush, etc.

Then, through the "folk rock" scene, I became familiar with British and Irish music--Bothy Band, Planxty, Steeleye Span, Pentangle, Sandy Denny, etc.

So, how I came into folk music as an American teenager is actually pretty damn complex, as the music came from so many sources--tv & radio, but also movies, live performances & concerts, through direct exposure to black gospel music, white church music, "ethnic" music (as we called the music we sang to at home and danced to at weddings and funerals) like polka music, swing, etc. Folk music, as I define it, came to me in my youth from all around me, really. But maybe I see it that way because I've never put up walls around the music I love that I know either was the roots of certain types of music, or a shoot that sprang from the root.

I just know that the majority of acts on that program didn't reflect "folk music" to me at all. Rather, it seemed to be that upper middle class, white college music of the late 50s and early 60s that got a lot of airplay on MOR stations. It ain't what I was listening to late at night in the dark that came out of Little Rock, I can tell you that!