Whew!!!!! I just read this whole thread for the first time. and it's hard to sort it out. Don, it's great that you had already heard Folkways and traditional music by the time the Kingston Trio and the Highwaymen arrived. You and another 100,000 people. The rest of us who didn't live in a large, urban environment (like me) had heard Rusty Draper (I bet no one remembers him)Frankie Lane, a little Burl Ives and some ridiculously COMMERCIAL recordings by the Weavers (which I loved, and didn't turn my nose up at because they had strings in the background.) The first "traditional" folk singer I heard was Lonnie Donegan, and while I loved his music and still love it, he sure wasn't traditional in style. No one crinkles their nose that he had electric guitar on his albums, but they sure will if you walk into a folk festival today, with one. Like many kids who grew up in a more rural section of the country, folk music WAS the Kingston Trio, The Cumberland Three and the Tarriers. I came to love folk music and have a thirst for more because of them, just as kids ten years later heard Peter, Paul and Mary and the Highwaymen.

For those who seek the glory days of the sixties, listen to the CD re-issues of McDougal and Bleeker Street. Very little of that stuff holds up any better than the Kingston Trio, to my ears. Bud and Travis? C'mon. Even Fred Neil, who I heard many times, and really enjoyed. I don't think he was any more "folk" than the Kingston Trio. Just a much better guitar player and a fine singer.

Not having seen the program, I can't comment on it. I did hear the Kingston Trio ten or twelve years ago, and what bothered me is that they'd had too much to drink and didn't respect their audience... they knew they just had to start singing Tom Dooley, and they would re-awaken the old memory box, and they could play it as sloppy as Hell. I wasn't irritated that they played their old hits. I was disgusted because they seemed to care so little about the music. Maybe that's how most of the people feel on this thread who watched the program. I might have felt the same way.

As for the Doo Wop shows.... Puhleeeeezzzze, don't the unwashed public realize that Doo Wop is a term that someone made up much later, and it's really rhythm and blues? :-) I personally have enjoyed the series (but never bought the CDs, because I have the originals and enjoy them better.) So what, if they've gotten a little long in the tooth? Geez! When I saw Mississippi John he was kinda hunched over.. not at all like he was when he first recorded in the twenties. I was always kinda hoping that folk music was the one form of music where age was honored. I sure as Hell tried to sound sixty when I was twenty. Now you tell me that folks look funny, when they get older?

I suppose I don't have any problem with any of the opinions expressed here. I probably agree with most of them... even the ones that seem diametrically opposed. I don't look to PBS to give an in-depth look at much of anything... even the Ken Burns shows... they give an overview (I stopped watching the Jazz series, even though in many ways it was wonderful, because they tried to cover too much ground and ended up short-changing too many musicians. But for 90% of America, the Kingston Trio and the Highwaymen WERE folk music. Not Tom Paxton(who is a friend, but 95% of America has never heard of.)
For some, like us, the Kingston Trio and others were a door into a wonderful world of music that has enriched our lives. Why knock the door you came through? Maybe others will come through that same door.. or through REM or Counting Crows, or The Dixie Chicks. One thing I know that grousing all the time doesn't attract much of anyone.

Jerry