Ill Ino S University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Home , Archie Green, Scrapper Blackwell, The Dillards

H ILL INO S UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

PRODUCTION NOTE

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Large-scale Digitization Project, 2007. olume 4, Number 3 (whole issue 18) February 3, 1964

FOLKSINGS; ANNIVERSARY; VOTING -- We Are Three Years Old And Busy--

461ksingg and elections are the duties facing Campus Folksong Club's active embership this month, as the Club begins its fourth straight year of operation.

The first folksing of the new semester will be held on February 7th at 8:00 'clock in 112 Gregory Hall. The second.sing of the month will be held two weeks ater at the same location and time, on the 21st of February. This will be the hird Anniversary Sing, and will feature a collection of the Club's best talent rom the past year.

Although plans are not yet definite, it is the intention of the Club to present, s a momento of its recent recording success, some of the artists who graced the econd long-playing record album in the Club's career--Green Fields of Illinois. (le Mayfield will be on hand, and he has promised to bring along his wife Doris idsome of his musical friends from Southern Illinois. He is especially hopeful lat Stelle Elam, the fiddler featured on the Club's record, will be able to appear Sthe sing. It was just one year ago that Mrs. Elam made her debut on our stage, id those who were there will remember the excitment she generated with her old- lmey fiddling style.

Less entertaining, but ultimately perhaps more important, is the annual businesE !eting, scheduled for February 12th at 8:00 p.m. in Room 273 Illini Union. This ithe one meeting during the year when all members of the Club can vote--specific- ly, for the five officers, President, Viee-President, Treasurer, Secretary, and wrresponding Secretary. Although preliminary selections for these offices have ýen made by a nominating committee, the decisions of the committee are not final; ey are only guidelines, and any legitimate (dues-paying) member can propose his n choices for any of the above offices and vote for them.

As an added attraction for those contemplating attending the business meeting, film will be shown free of charge. It will feature the folksongs of the Ozark igion and will deal with the folklore scholar's job of collecting songs and in- Irmation about them.

Finally, plans are afoot for the further advancement of the Club's seminar ,ogram. Dr. Wayland Hand of UCLA, one of the country's most prominent folklorists, ,11 speak here on the 12th of March as part of the Humanities Division's program 'guest speakers. It is hoped that Dr. Hand will have time to share some of his owledge with Club members during his stay on campus. CONSTITUTION OF THE CAMPUS FOLKSONG CLUB------January, 1964.

ARTICLE I - NAME

This organization shall be known as the Campus Folksong Club.

ARTICLE II - AIM

The aim of the Campus Folksong Club is to facilitate the study, exchange, and enjoyment of traditional folk material (excluding dance).

ARTICLE III - MEMBERSHIP

Section 1. Membership in this organization shall be open to University

of Illinois students and staff and their families who have

paid dues.

Section 2. Other persons may join as contributing members by paying

equivalent dues. Contributing members shall not be eligible

for Club elective office; nor shall they vote at meetings.

ARTICLE - DUES

Section Dues shall be $2.00 per annum, to be collected in the fall

semester.

Section 2. For members joining the organization in the spring, dues

shall be $1.00 for that semester.

Section 3. Dues shall not be refunded.

ARTICLE V- OFFICERS, ELECTIONS, AND EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Section 1. The elected officers shall be: President, Vice-President,

Recording Secretary, Corresponding Secretary, and Treasurer.

Section 2. Committee chairmen for the various phases of activity shall

be appointed as necessary by the President.

Section 3. The elected officers and committee chairmen shall constitute

the Club's Executive Committee. It shall be the Executive - 2 -

Committee's duty to plan and coordinate activity for

meetings, sings, concerts, and such other functions as

the membership authorizes.

Section 4. All officers shall be elected at the business meeting of the

spring semester and shall serve for a year. In the event

that no officers are on hand at the opening of any semester

a temporary presiding officer shall be designated by the

faculty advisor to serve until the next business meeting.

Section 5. Vacancies in office during the calendar year shall be

filled by presidential appointment. Such officers shall

serve until the next business meeting, at which time the

office shall be filled by election.

Section 6. All members shall be notified in writing of business meetings.

Section 7. All voting other than for constitutional amendments shall be

decided by a simple plurality of members present at a meeting.

ARTICLE VI - MEETINGS

A business meeting will be held at least once a semester. Additional meetings and activities will be specially scheduled.

ARTICLE VII - RULES

Section 1. All student members shall be required to abide by the

University Code on Student Affairs.

ARTICLE VIII - ADOPTION AND AMENDMENTS

Section 1. This constitution shall be effective upon adoption by a

majority of the members of the organization.

Section 2. All constitutional amendments shall be decided by a

2/3 vote of members present at a meeting. true life adventure series

AMERICAN FOLKLORE SOCIETY CONVENTION A Worm's-eye View of Folklorists at Work and Play Detroit, 1963

After three years of rubbing elbows with the great and near-great of the folkloristics game your correspondent finally seized the chance to do the job proper and attend a convention of the country's most prominent folklore practi- tioners. The instigation for this foray into the midst of my betters came, as one might suspect, from Archie Green, the eminent advisor to Campus Folksong Club and a long-recognized leader in the study of traditional music. Archie had suggested, as long ago as last year, in fact, that I drop in at one of these solemn gatherings and stretch my brain with a well-researched paper or two. Circumstances, the press of business, and a chronically moribund pocketbook had prevented such ramblings in past years, however, and I had to rest content with secondhand reports from the above-mentioned advisor as well as A. Doyle Moore, Preston Martin, Larry Klingman, and other migratory workers.

But in December of the year just past I found myself in better circumstances and, thanking Archie for his good offices, resolved to join the assembly of brains on the second day of its convention. Since the conclave was to be held in Detroit, only half a day's journey from my home, the trip would be neither arduous nor pro- hibitive in expense. On the 28th of December I strode into LaSalle Street Station in Chicago, crossed the ticket agent's palm with thirteen pieces of silver, and then entrusted my destiny to the Michigan Central Railroad for the ensuing five hours, all of which were pleasantly spent, mostly in the bar car, where I performed a study in folklore all my own, to wit: the observation of Homo americanus railroadiensis under the influence of a fast train and eight-year-old Scotch. The conclusions of this research, only tangentially germane to the present narrative, will be published as a separate project as soon as I can secure a grant from the Association of American Railroads. Suffice to say that, after a pleasant afternoon of watching my fellow passengers going into eclipse and the ingestion of an epic meal (terminated by a symphonic plum pudding with brandy) I dismounted from the train in Detroit's venerable Central Station and boarded a bus for the Park- Shelton Hotel, center of the festivities and gypsy camp for the Illinois delegation of Green and Moore. I arrived in the lobby and found it deserted. The clerk confirmed that my mentors were indeed putting up on the premises, but were nowhere to be found at the present moment. Plumping into an armchair, I resolved to wait until they showed up.

An hour passed, and a second threatened, but still no sign of a folklorist. Suddenly, there strode from the elevator toward the street, in great haste, a man I recognized. It seemed to be Roger Abrahams of Texas, who gave a lecture here last year, and I strode up to him politely.

"Pardon me, are you Roger Abrahams?"

"Yes...

"I'm from Illinois; do you know where Archie Green is?" "Well, I just overslept my nap, but I think they're all over at the International Institute next door. There's a program arranged for tonight."

We turned to our left and headed for the Institute adjacent to the hotel. Just as we reached the street, however, we were greeted by Judy McCulloh, and then by several other guests, all of whom informed us that the program was now over. On inquiring as to what we had missed, we discovered that the scholars had been entertained by no less than a group of Ukrainian folk musicians and dancers. The implications for a Slavic scholar like myself were obvious, and I cursed my timidity at not having ventured outside the hotel during the past hour. Had I decided on a stroll I might have at least chanced upon the Institute and caught a faint chord or two from a bandura or balalaika. But all had been for naught, and to boot, I was faced with the problem of what to do for the rest of the evening and where to spend the night.

In a few moments Archie and Doyle walked in, and with them a man I immediately recognized--D. K. Wilgus, guiding hand of west-coast folklore studies and a name Archie would pronounce in cathedral whispers were he capable of lowering his voice. Introductions were made all around, and the subject of where I would spend the night was brought up. Wilgus offered me half his double bed, Archie blanched white at the thought of my trying to diddle the hotel out of a free night's lodging, and Arnold Pilling, a Wayne anthropologist, suggested I go along with him to a party where I might meet some students who would be willing to put me up for the night. This I agreed to, and Pilling's prophecy was fulfilled. Not only was I ultimately lodged just around the corner from the building where the morning's papers were to be read, I also got the chance to attend a party, where I immediately fell into a profound dispute with some Wayne students, and distinguished myself by uttering some of the most tendentious drivel I have ever spoken anywhere, at any occasion, public or private. My only consolation was that the Michigan metaphysicians with whom I was debating topped even my shabby efforts at logical thought. The party was not a total loss, however, for I did secure a bed, as I have said, and in addition I made the acquaintance of some of the most prominent drunks in Detroit.

But hilarity had to give way to academica, and at nine the next morning I hauled myself over to the Wayne campus and prepared to listen to the first reading of the papers prepared during the past year. Several interesting speakers were on hand, and my little heart was all a-flutter with the prospect of encountering so much brain in one throw: So many names--Wilgus, Crowley, Leach, James--all the greats Archie had been blathering about for years. Now I was to sit in the same room with them and hear them discuss their own work. Not only that, the work would be subjected, not to the criticism of amateurs, as happens when these eminent gentlemen condescended to visit our campus, but to a whole room full of colleagues, eager to assault, batter, destroy, or at best, supplement, the work of the learned Herr Doktorwho had just given his magnum opus its first hearing. The prospects, both for entertainment and enlightenment, were dazzling, and I found myself adjust- ing my tie and setting my head at a higher angle as I prepared to climb the stairs and enter the room where the eminent were holding forth.

But I never made it to the second floor. As I walked into the building I found a pride of folklorists, including the already cited Wilgus, prowling the lobby, smoking, and discussing matters of what I took to be great import. They recognized me immediately, and I must have flushed appreciably when they bid me to join them and asked me if I wanted coffee. I assented, and we adjourned to the lower level (both geographically and conversationally speaking). Over coffee the mer began to loosen up, and each spoke his mind on various subjects, some of them related to folklore, some of them not. Pilling filled the outlanders in on the civil rights scene in Detroit. Wilgus and another man discussed their early train- ing in anthropology and the personalities under whom they studied. The general consensus seemed to be that Franz Boas was a magnificant scholar and a fine gentle- man, while Radcliffe-Brown was a cad and a poltroon. Naturally I, who had gained my knowledge of these two men from books alone, listened intently to the flow of speech. Astounding as it may seem, I said little, preferring to soak up these sub- rosa tidbits of scandal that the student rarely hears at lectures. When the brilliance of Boas and the inelegances of Radcliff-Brown had been exhausted to the satisfaction of all concerned the party headed once more for the second floor and decided that now we must really hear some papers. We did, and we were not disappointed.

Clearly the most interesting and most entertaining paper of the day (I only spent one day at the convention and cannot pass judgment on the other productions) was Daniel Crowley's report on Tobagonian concepts of national character. Dr. Crowley, formerly an art historian, has run up a really dazzling record in folklore at the University of California at Davis, for not only does he investigate the report in a fine and scholarly manner, but he does this while battling a physical handicap as well. Confined to a wheelchair, he nevertheless manages to cover the smaller islands of the West Indies collecting folk tales, jokes, stories, doggerel and other minutiae pertinent to the ethnic image the people hold of themselves and their neighbors. His obvious delight in his work carries over into his reading, and his eyes light up with a merry twinkle as he brings the audience body and soul into the humor of the West Indians. I particularly recall his story of the poor Tobagonian preparing to steal bananas from a plantation, beseeching his Maker to protect him in his thievery. Entering the banana-growing field, he contemplates his deed and murmurs, "De Lawd is mah shepherd." The owner of the plantation, lying in wait, answers: "If he touch one, he gonna lay down in green pastures."

Crowley's lecture had a similar effect on all present, and I resolved that, if he is ever in our neighborhood, he should definitely be prevailed upon to grant us the pleasure of arranging a seminar for him. The scholar and the interested amateur can gain equal benefit from the ministrations of such a competent, yet entertaining, speaker and raconteur.

This lecture over, the group adjourned for a luncheon. Before we went into the hall, however, MacEdward Leach suggested that I talk to Barbara Krader, folklorist and Slavicist from Ohio State University. I honored his request, and found Mrs. Krader a most engaging and knowledgabbe operator in both the fields to which I am allied--Slavic studies and folklore. Her erudition, along with her competence as a collector and writer, gave me many suggestions as to how I might merge the two fields profitably in the future, and after a rather lengthy exchange of information we made our way into the hall where the luncheon was to be served.

Here the offices of Archie Green again came into play. He took me by the arm and began casing the room to find a table of folklorists which would grant me the most profit. We passed one table which boasted an empty seat, and I made a move to sit down, but Archie, with a firm grasp of both my elbow and the situation, mut- tered, "For God's sake, don't sit there; that table's full of anthropolpgists t" I never did figure out what he meant by that remark, and I had occasion to reflect that my sojourn among the anthropologists at Illinois had always been pleasant and informative, but not wishing to affront my mentor, father-confessor and all-around parent surrogate of three long years, I pressed on until A. Green seated me to his satisfaction...the table at which I eventually took my lunch included George Simpson of Oberlin, William Jansen of Kentucky, Harry Oster of Iowa, and John Flanagan of Illinois. Also near me was the venerable A. K. Davis of Virginia, whose paper, regretably, I was not to hear, since it was to be given the next day. Talk at the luncheon table was fast and covered much ground. I found, to my delight, that my three years of tutelage under the aforesaid Green were not only interesting, but pertinent to the main trends in folklore today. With some exceptions I found myself able to converse, if not elegantly, at least competently, with the learned gentlemen whose names I have just cited. As for their impressions of me--well, I can only guess that long years of extracting dubious information from the national yokelry had so inured them to my brand of conversation that they took it in stride. To a man, they all kept their lunches down, and some even appeared refreshed as we headed back to the conference room for the day's last round of papers.

The subject of the day was Negro folklore and allied industries, but some of the papers were related to this subject only in the most casual way. Professor Flanagan read his offering--a dissertation on the folklore elements in John Brown's Body by Benet. The paper, a comprehensive and scholarly work of the best type, had very little meat for the folklorist, actually (and a great deal for the literary critic), but the group listened with intent, for the gripping story Flanagan re- created was alone enough to send the listener back to his American literature collection to get a wholly new slant on this oft-ignored work. At the end of the paper the professor made a point which, in the present context,was parenthetical, but which could serve as the thesis for a whole raft of new papers to be done both by folklorists and literary gents alike--namely--why have the critics failed to accord full literary status to Body just because it is a folk-oriented epic and, hence, "unliterary?" The potential in this question could set off a scholastic whoobab that would keep six literary journals going for a couple of years. The implications for the folklorists are many, but it is doubtful that the glove will be picked up in the near future by either side, so heavy is the press of other business in both fields.

A paper that elicited a good deal of comment was the report of Thomas Cheney from Brigham Young University and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, purporting to trace the Mormon Church's prejudice against the Negro to folk beliefs among white Mormons. The effort, though greeted with courtesy, was roundly judged as an attempt to beg the question and remove the Mormon elders from responsibility for the policy of the church. There was also a good deal of sentiment that the paper, interesting as it was, was actually not all that germane in an essentially folkloristic context, for it appeared then, and still does appear to me now, as basically a sociological paper, perhaps even a rationalization of an unpopular view, and not a valid report on some item of folk belief or behavior.

The best item of the afternoon was a strange reading, in that the writer of the paper could not actually read it himself. This was Ray Browne of Purdue, who was called out of town and had left his opus in the custody of D. K. Wilgus for reading. The paper was "Lincoln in the Popular Mind," an unusual and thoroughly interesting paper which Brown read here last year for our Club. I think it is a measure of the man and his work that the paper was extremely well received in Detroit, even though the reading, done very well by Wilgus, was, of necessity, second-hand. There was an audible sigh of helplessness at the end of the reading when the audience realized that it could not ask questions, and there were many provoking points in the paper that could have served as the basis for a good set of questions had the author only been present. But there was nothing to be done, and since train time beckoned, I merely thanked what hosts were within whispering distance and stole out the door to the bus stop.

And that, children, is the story of Daddy's first convention. If you expected to see folklorists pinching fat ladies and dropping water bags out of the hotel window you would have been disappointed. But if you intended to make the personal acquaintance of the men who run the folklore departments at our universities, who do the collecting and publish the papers, who make the tapes and learn the new languages, and who, on top of it all, try to teach it to the bright-eyed, eager, and hopelessly confused college students of today, then you would have been reward- ed, as I was; for the folklorists, almost to a man, are engaging chaps to talk to and to listen to, and one of their conventions can fuel the observer with enough topics to engage his efforts for the next year.

--F. K. Plous, Jr.

WAYLAND HAND TO LECTURE IN MARCH

For the third consecutive year the Humanities Division and the Campus Folksong Club are bringing an outstanding American folklorist to lecture at the University of Illinois. In 1962, Professor MacEdward Leach came from the University of Penn- sylvania, and last year we heard Professor Francis Lee Utley, from the Ohio State University. On March 12, 1964, we will be privileged to hear another fine lecture, from Dr. Wayland Hand, who is Professor of German and Folklore at the University of California at Los Angeles. He will speak at 8:00 p.m. in 100 Gregory Hall on the topic "Hands Across the Sea: The Development of Folklore Studies in Europe and America."

Dr. Hand, a past president of the American Folklore Society (1957-1958) and editor of its Journal (1947-1951), has been editor of Western Folklore since 1954, and since 1960 has served as Director of the Center for the Study of Comparative Folklore and Mythology at UCLA. He has edited Volumes VI and VII of the Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from North Carolina (Duke University Press: 1961-1964), and compiled A Dictionary of Words and Idioms Associated with Judas Iscariot (University of California Press: 1942). In addition, Dr. Hand is the author of numerous articles on metal mining lore, beliefs and superstitions, and other aspects of American and European folklore. His current fields of research include American folk belief and superstition, customs, and legends.

All Club members are urged to attend Dr. Hand's lecture, a stimulating commentary on the history of folklore scholarship from the point of view of a great folklorist who is himself representative of the international scene. Since Dr. Hand also currently heads the exciting folklore program at UCLA, one of the three centers for graduate study in folkore in the United States, those who might be interestedin pursuing their interest in folklore in a more formal way are invited to speak with him about his program, its offerings and opportunities. LOS ANGELES AND ALL THAT

They say folksingers are a dime a dozen on the west coast, but maybe by that they mean people who carry around guitars and collect Bob Dylan records and in general make themselves obnoxiously present at any given moment. I don't think they mean folksingers, or at least not folksingers as I have come to understand them after three years of sitting gawk-eared at every Campus Folksong Club function. They have developed what they call folksingers to such an incredible overdegree on the west coast that if they had been moving in the opposite direction they would probably be past Nelson Eddy by now and moving in on Harry Tanner. As it is, the situation---

But let me begin maybe a month ago, when Dave Reed and I got out of the taxicab and marched into the Biltmore Hotel, all agog with the thought of eight days in the Big City. Reed, who is executive editor of The Daily Illini and a senior in English besides, and I, who required no introduction, at least to Reed, were covering the Rose Bowl pageantry in all its glory for The Daily Illini and assorted other trib- unes. "Golly, Rog," Reed said, or something not very much like that, "just think-- eight days of freedom in the Big City '." At which point we turned a corner in the corridor of the Biltmore Hotel and came dab up against a big table labeled "Illinois Student Information Table."

"Dave," I said, "don't look now. Well, do look now, since you already have. Who is that sitting behind the Illinois Student Information Table?"

"It might be, it could be, it is," Reed said. "University of Illinois Security Officer W. Thomas Morgan." Dave came up the hard way, starting as City Editor, and he always talks in Associated Press Style. You can sometimes hear the capital letters even.

"Hello, fellows," Morgan said. "I need some information here, If you'll just fill out these cards...."

Actually, it figured. Can you imagine a table set up to GIVE information to students? Naturally this Student Information Table was to GET information about students. I was staying in room 2103, along with the brass section of the marching band and a third of the woodwinds. The room was smallish.

So after we had unpacked, which in that crowded space consisted of loosening the catches on our suitcases, we sallied out into the night. Lo, the first thing to catch our collective eye was a piece of authentically proverty-stricken note- book paper thumb-tacked to a bulletin board in the lobby.

THE REAL THING ' it said in big letters with an exclamation point after, and continued:

BLUEGRASS MUSIC

by the

DILLARDS--the finest

bluegrass band in the world, now at the

23 SKIDDOO and then there was an address and all that. "The finest bluegrass band in the world," Reed said. "Maybe we'd better go listen so we can report back to Vic and Simon and the rest of the guys in the world's now second best bluegrass band. And so we went.

The taxi driver was, well, affable. "You live here maybe 15 years, you don't know all the neighborhoods," he said jovially after admitting he had never heard of the UCLA neighborhood. Skillfully plummeting his Checker into the stream of traffic, he took a turn around Pershing Square to get headed in the right direction. Reed noticed that the turn around the Square had cost us 70 cents. After a twenty minute drive, punctuated from time to time by a click from the meter, the driver pulled into a gas station. "Actually," he said, "I'm a bit lost. Besides, it's time to kill two birds with one stone, if you know what I mean." He disappeared into the men's room while we waited in the cab. Eventually he reappeared, got into the cab, sat for a moment, and then snapped his fingers. "Dang nab it," he said, "I knew there was something else I stopped for--directions. This damn city is so big you get kind of turned around after a while." Then he went back into the station and got a map from the attendant.

"Do they have maps of metropolitan L.A. here?" Reed asked, because he wanted one.

"Nah. This here's a map of the Western United States. You get a little turned around like once in a while."

The ride having cost ';5.50, plus a nickel tip which we presented with appro- priate carelessness, we were at last before the vaunted "23 Skiddoo" and in a trice inside. In one corner of a room approximately the size of Archie Green's living room was a raised platform, where at present Charlie Chaplin movies were being shown. The rest of the room was filled with couples who were attired in coat, tie, and smugness. We informed the waiter that we were members of the Campus Folksong Club of the University of Illinois, and were shown to a table centrally located between the kitchen door and the john door. Then, with bounds and hurrays, the Dillards themselves ran through the room from somewhere and jumped onto the stage. The bass player gave his instrument a nasty crack on the edge of the stage, and a dull boom reverberated through the room. "We always do that," one of the Dillards said, and the grinning bass player whacked his bass against the edge of the stage again as a good-natured demonstration.

They said they were from Missouri, and they told a string of jokes about Missouri which I have mercifully forgotten. Then they played some songs. Then they told some more jokes, many of which seemed to center around the guitar player, or at least I think it was a guitar and he was definitely its player. His stunt consisted of looking stupid and holding his mouth open constantly. This fellow was a real comedian. It was particularly funny when he reached over and un-tuned the banjo during a solo, and the audience loved it. They roared again when he reached over and un-tuned the mandolin during ITS solo. But he didn't bother the bass player, who showed signs of being ready to un-tune back.

The characteristic--if any word with the root word "character" can be used in proximity to this group--of their presentation was, reportedly, humor. At a guess I would say that more than half of the total time was taken up in telling jokes (or, in any event, talking) and the rest with bluegrass music. It occurred to me during the performance that many bluegrass musicians are simply talking through their hats when they claim that they use "unamplified instruments." Certainly the instruments are unamplified; but the final sound owes as much to Consolidated Edison as it does to National Picks. The Dillards were only following a great bluegrass tradition when they alternated in front of the microphone, throwing shoulders out of joint in an effort to put the sounding hole within inches of the mike. Why bother not to amplify the instrument, if the fingering has to be done in the vicinity of the left ear in order to hold the instrument at nostril level?

But I have neglected the audience, which remained sullen at having the Charlie flicks taken from before their eyes. They were only really enthusiastic about one number--a satirical take-off on bluegrass which included the aforementioned un- tuning capers. It was hot in the room, and beads of sweat formed on many of their brows, nearly obscuring them.

Reed and I staggered out of the "23 Skiddoo" after the first set, and caught a taxi back to town. No, not quite. We walked for about four miles up some boulevard or another, passing in front of the Mormon Temple, and then hailed a taxi. The fare was $$.50.

The inference is perhaps not clear. It was my impression, gained from reading the entertainment pages of the Los Angeles papers, that the Dillards were one of the very few folksong groups then in town (in this respect L.A. is far different than Mecca, known by some as San Francisco). Their brand of music was clearly inferior to that presented at many folksings held by the Campus Folksong Club. They seemed totally lacking in respect for their material, for its origins, and for its traditions. They made fun of their songs. They burlesqued themselves. They committed the unforgivable crime against stringed instrument music: deliberately putting instruments out of tune. Yet they, and their audience, appeared to take it all very seriously and not be the least bit croggled by the repeated insults to the music.

I used to hear a lot of complaints that the folksong scene at the University of Illinois was isolated from the main current around the nation. Me, I'm becoming an isolationist. Maybe we should draw the line at the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and issue unrenewable ten-day passports to anyone from outside. If they refrain from idiocy for that period of time, we'll let them stay and swear them in.

Special for Autoharp by Roger Ebert

-- FREE REPRINT--

The Archive Committee has a small supply of a reprint, "Folksongs for Elementary School Children" by Club member Robert S. 11hitman. The article, which includes a brief bibliography and discography• appeared in Elementary Education (November, 1963). Copies of the reprint are free and can be obtained from Miss Carole Goodwin, h26 Busey Hall, Urbana or telephone, 332-0957.

GLENN OHRLIN: FURTHER CORRESPONDENCE

Glenn Ohrlin, who gave an exciting program of traditional songs and guitar pieces on December 1h, has proved to be one of the Clubts most prolific corres- pondents. His letters outline in unique first-hand fashion the occupations and preoccupations of one traditional musician; we wish to share them with you not only because they are documents of a growing friendship, but also because they shed a fuller light on the music we enjoyed when Glenn visited us.

We printed Glenn's first letter, an autobiographical statement, in the November 18, 1963, issue of Autoharp (Vol. 4, no. 2). Early in December, excerpts from his second letter were mailed out locally as part of our pre-concert pub- licity, For the benefit of Club members who live beyond the Champaign-Urbana area, we reproduce those selections here:

Mountain View, Ark. November 1, 1963

I been racking my brains to remember all the old cowboy songs I can think of. Some of them I hadn't thought of for a long time. Any- way the list is growing so I got a bunch of em. One isn't exactly a cowboy song although it used to be featured during the night celebra- tion at the Pendleton Round-Up. It has to do with the crew on a 32 horse combine harvesting grain in the hills around Pendleton. It was written about 1919 by Jock Coleman a Scotchman and cowboy and harvest head and sheppard or what have you. Jock was known as the Poet Lariat of that region.

Last Sunday afternoon I had what the present day cowboy calls a "bad horse wreck"...the guys that were furnishing the stock drove like mad to bring another horse just for me that they didn't ordinarily use for their own boys. Well when I finally come out on him he rared the first jump like he was going to fall back (this was right in the chute) so I automatically threw my weight forward to not coax him back any more. Just then he threw his head back in my face and knocked me cold. He went ahead bucking like he ought to then and I rode him about two jumps unconscious then bucked off. I must have froze unto the bronc rein when he hit me because I kept ahold of it all the way to the ground and upset the horse in the air above me. He started to fall right on me but somehow he flopped over the other way instead and lit along side me. When he got up he bucked right over the top of me but didn't step on me. I guess the Lord was with me. They all thought I was killed but I just had my forhead and chin bruised when he hit me with his head. Everybody is after me to quit now instead of egging me on. People are soft. If I could get out of the chute on him without getting blackjacked and he'd stay on his feet I think I could ride him all right and drag the steel right through him. Oh well . Bill Becker, in his brief but gracious introduction the night of the concert, gave us more perspective about Glenn, his style and his reportoire. In the course of those remarks, Bill revealed his surprise that Glenn, a cowboy, should have turned up in the Ozarks. Glenn kept this comment in mind, and soon after the concert sent us these words of enlightenment:

Mountain View, Ark. December 19, 1963

Something that Bill Becker said in introducing me set me to thinking that possibly there are some things about Arkansas and the Ozarks that are not generally known. So possibly this will be of some interest to you and others. He mentioned that he hadn't expected to find a "cowboy" in Arkansas. Now actually in the past 15 years or so there has been a great influx of cattlemen from Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and other states to Ark. because of more grass, cheaper land, lower taxes etc. I had looked in Calif. and Oregon in established ranching areas and decided that Arkansas had some advantages over those states. If you ever spend much time here and go to a few cattle sales (weekly here) you will find that there is a great Western influence here. Much more so than in the same business further East. Here in Mtn. View we had a small colony of rodeo people for a few yrs. We have Chip and Doris Morris formerly of Montana and in the rodeo business for 30 yrs. or more. Some have left here like Gene Madison of So. Dak., Gene Aberle of So. Dak., Buck Sharp of Texas and others. While Madison was here Mtn. View was a stopping place for cowboys traveling south to the rodeos.

Also strictly on a native level we have had and still have to this day, free range in this county. There are many people who range their cattle out the biggest part of the year in herds from a few head to 200 or more. These cattle are generally branded or ear marked, sometimes belled so they can be found in the woods. The fenced areas merely dot the country, just fields etc. I was talking to Driftwood about this and he said when he was a boy he rode the range all south of my place after his fathers cattle. So him and Neal come by their big hats honestly. My neighbor Hub Willis who is in the hospital (the one I was worried about) ran a lot of cattle and hogs on the range West of here in the Murphy and Bull Pen Holler country. We have several thousand acres of range West of us joining his place. Hub rode a mule for 20 yrs. in that area, a place as rough and wild as you could find. I was several years finding the old road over the rim and into Bull Pen Holler. The approaches are now grown up in timber and brush. Row crop farming has nearly passed out of the picture here in the Ozarks and livestock and feed crops has taken over. The same thing is true in other areas of the south and I know cowboys and ranchers in Louisiana (old ranching area in S.W.), Mississippi, Alabama and of course there is a great cattle industry in Florida and some top notch cowboys. I have known good hands from every area of the nation so it doesn't seem so strange to me.

Anyway I will say that as far as free range, the easy going ways of the people, the general interest in cattle, riding, etc. this is a sort of last frontier. I hope this isn't plumb incoherent. I wish I had thoughtto say something about this after the intro. Oh well I Another question put to Glenn here about cowboy culture prompted his most recent letter to us: What brand do you use on your Stone County ranch? Glenn generously sent us a full-scale sample of his brand, the "Rafter O," burned with the iron onto a clean piece of wood, together with the following comments:

Mountain View, Ark. December 30, 1963

Here is a sample of my brand the "Rafter 0." The brand varies a little at times as I use a running iron intead of a stamp style iron. In some states with strict brand laws it is illegal to use a running iron. However, Arkansas is the opposite of strict. Evert Smiths grandfather Simon Craig at one time owned my place, branded S C and ranged cattle over this area. One of my neighbors brands a "tomahawk"-- L-- Z --his first ranch was on Tomahawk Creek, hence the brand. I rent another 120 acres from A. C. Neff now of Kansas and he brands a cross-- ' --about 10 inches tall. I'm thinking of collecting some local brands and burn em on a board with the names of the owner. The Thomas family 5 miles East of here brands . Thats a pretty brand but I don't like too many sharp corners as they tend to burn too deep. One outfit I worked in Arizona branded "rabbit ears"-- 1 -- about a foot high.

I was to Little Rock Saturday and knocked around a little. I saw a record album called "Outlaws" had different guys on it. Seeger, McCurdy, Elliot and others. I was suprised to see that McCurdy had one called "1110,000 cattle" but he sings it way different than I do. The tune at least had nothing similar and the words different too. I wonder if you ought to copywrite some of my stuff as I seemed to have learned em all different? They had somebody singing "Cole Younger" which is known around these parts, but they sang it too slow, by the time you heard the second word you'd forgot the first one. By the way, we got a lot of Youngers living around here. Some admit they are kin of the Youngers but some don't know for sure.

Last night Ruth Miller gave me the ballet to the "Rangers Prayer." No tune. Its about a dying forest ranger.

Hope you can use the board and brand.

Glenn Ohrlin

KI~~ F J BOOKS AND RECORDS

That You Should Know

The purpose of this article is to bring to your attention books and records that I feel are particularly important in the area of folk music and a must for the serious student of folk song. These items are being recommended not only on the basis of their importance but because they are currently in print and at prices that make them readily accessible.

The first item, English Folk-Songs from the Southern Appalachians, by Cecil J. Sharp is one of the most important collections of folk music in print today. Cecil Sharp, born in London, 1859, was first a musician and later in life a music anthologist (folk song collector). He collected first in England. Late in his life, 1916-1918, he came to the United States and collected in the mountains of North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Olive Dame Campbell had collected in Georgia and Kentucky from 1907 to 1910 and together with Sharp they published a volume of these songs in 1917. The 1917 volume is out of print today, but its contents are included in this expanded collection which is edited by Miss Maud Karpeles. Miss Karpeles traveled with Sharp and wrote down the words to the songs while Sharp was carefully noting down the tunes. In 1932, eight years after Sharp's death, the book was published and was reprinted in 1952 and again in 1960. This two-volumes-in-one edition consists of xxxvii pages of introduction and 835 pages comprising 274 songs and ballads and 968 printed tunes. Sharp's introduction to his 1917 publication is reproduced, and reveals the isolated existence, manners, speech habits, etc. of the people from whom he collected. His 1916 picture of the folk singers isolated from the outside world in their mountain homes is unfortunately one that has persisted to a large extent and has become lodged in the romantic minds of many of our contemporaries. Miss Karpeles in her preface states that in 1951 she revisited many of the same people in their homes and found that quite a revolution due to radio and electricity had occurred with "hilly-billy" and popular music coming from the radios in almost every mountain home.

The first volume of the edition is devoted to 72 ballads and their tunes. "Lord Randal," for example, is printed in full with 13 different tunes as sung to Sharp by 13 different informants (folk singers). Textual variations are also given. The second volume consists of 134 songs, 5 hymns, 27 nursery songs, 15 jigs, and 20 play-party games. Each song is placed or classified musically by Sharp according to structure; singer, place, and date are given for each.

Notes to ballads and songs and a bibliography conclude this magnificent work. The cost of this handsome hard bound edition is just $9.35 (postage and insurance included). It can be ordered from:

Blackwell's Music Shop 39 Holywell Street Oxford, England

When ordering, use the code word "Trio" and the item no. 1491A. Make personal checks payable to B. H. Blackwell, Ltd. The second book, Ballads and Songs, collected by members of the Missouri Folk-Lore Society and edited by Professor H. M. Belden is of less stature than Sharp's collection, but is a very important contribution nevertheless. This collection of Missouri material, compiled over a period of years, was initiated in 1903 by Professor Belden and finally published in 19h0 with a reprinting in 1955.

Since Belden was a professor of literature, the emphasis in this book is placed on the texts of the 287 ballads and songs included while only some 60 tunes are printed. Belden, himself, states that these tunes were taken down by persons with little talent for the task. Each song, however, is very well documented in relation to other known printed sources, and often the historical background to the song is given. For these reasons this 532 page paper bound collection is invaluable as a reference, but perhaps not so important, say, as source material for the urban singer.

Economically, however, this item is extremely attractive. Make your personal check of $4.00 payable to the University of Missouri and order from:

Chairman, University Studies Committee University of Missouri Columbia, Missouri

Next issue look for a review of records.

--Preston K. Martin

STILL AVAILABLE

_T i, o,

2T fI 0\

...... IMPRESSIONS OF NASHVILLE

The old phrase, "He can't see the forest for the trees," could not be more aptly applied than to the people in the music business in Nashville, Tennessee.

If I came away from there with any one strong impression it was that the people I met in "Music City USA" know less about good music than anyone else in our land. They are like a man on a merry-go-round, afraid to jump off for fear that he won't get back on, and yet so sick of the music and going around that he wants off. You also get the distinct impression that good country music is deliberately suppressed for fear that someone might hear it and actually enjoy it.

This may sound like the utterances of a bitter man; not so. I have never been treated more kindly than I was by the people on "Record Row" in Nashville. Country music people are a rare, wonderful breed. They believe in the creed "...all men are created equal." In Nashville, a southern city, I saw Negroes and whites working side by side with no sign of discrimination. Of course, this doesn't apply to all forms of business and living,but, then it doesn't here in the north, either.

As a person who has loved country and "folk" music all my life I actually pity the people I met in Nashville. The music business there is a cold, hard, calculat- ing struggle for the almighty buck and these people seem to have lost the basic desire that drew them to music.

If some of these statements seem to contradict one another there is a reason for it. The music people of Nashville are a paradox. On one hand they are help- ful, friendly, courteous. On the other, they are desparately trying to blot out their natural responses to the sound of good music in search of the "hit." As one official told me, "WIJearen't looking for a good song. We are looking for something that we can sell within sixty days."

Primarily our trip to Nashville was to deliver the master tapes for a new record that Doris and I are producing. We decided to kill two birds with one stone and took along tapes of some 18 other original compositions. Hence, the impressions of the music and publishing industry. It was an educational trip and not the least bit disappointing despite some of the sour observations I've made.

One of the chuckles I had during the many visits to publishing houses came from the comments of an official of Shurfire Music Co. After listening to our tape he turned and said, "Lyle, you belong in the folk music field, not country." I smiled and remained silent. At another office still another official remarked, "You sound like you have sung some folk music, have you?" When I replied in the affirmative, he asked another question. "You wouldn't happen to know the old song the 'Black Sheep' would you?" I reckon I do.

A number of people talked to us about folk music but none seemed to enjoy dwelling on the subject. Their reaction to folk music was hard to describe and identify...fear, I think would be the best word. Fear that it might creep into the industry and upset their carefully built house of cards. Sort of like a political candidate who has for his opponent a national hero...ala Stevenson and Eisenhower. In summary I make a prediction and a statement of belief about country music and Nashville '

In time the music industry of Nashville will strangle itself on the inter- twinings of the many branches it is sending out, much like a tree that grows so big that it shuts the sunlight away from itself.

Unless country music untwines itself from the maze called "Record Row" it is headed for a sad fate. In short, the best thing that can happen to country music is to get it out of Nashville.

Lyle Mayfield Trip was made January 18-20, 1964

1E SHALL OVERCOMEt Songs of the Southern Freedom Movement Compiled by Guy and Candie Carawan for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. New York: Oak Publications, 1963. 112pp., $1.95.

Latest in a series of freedom song compilations made by Guy Carawan for dis- tribution at SNCC conferences, this collection of sixty songs grouped under the headings "Sit-Ins," "Freedom Rides," "Albany, Georgia," 'Voter Registration," and "Greenwood, Birmingham..." offers melody lines, chord indications, metronome mark- ings, indications of authorship or arrangement, and introductions which as often as not are quotations from people directly involved in the movement, reflections on and eye-witness accounts of their experiences.

The Carawans carefully point out that they are not offering definitive versions of either texts or tunes. That is precluded both by the musical elasticity of the songs--spirituals, hymns, gospel songs, rock-and-roll numbers--which the movement has often adapted to its use, and by the nature of the movement itself--vital, intense, bringing its determination to the present and the future, expanding old songs or bringing them up to date with new verses, and creating new songs to com- memorate new situations.

The book is a good practical document of the civil rights movement; the practical nature of the songs is reflected in this comment by the editors:

Freedom songs today are sung in many kinds of situations: at mass meetings, prayer vigils, demonstrations, before Free- dom Rides and Sit-Ins, in paddy wagons and jails, at conferences, work-shops and informal gatherings. They are sung to bolster spirits, to gain new courage and to increase the sense of unity. The singing sometimes disarms jail guards, policemen, by-standers and mob participants of their hostili- ties. (p.7) BLUES TO J,^5 AN^

SCRAPPER BLACKWtTELL/MR. SCRAPPER'S BLUES. Francis Blackwell (vocals, guitar; piano on one). Goin' Where the Monon Crosses the Yellow Dog. Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out. "A" Blues. Little Girl Blues 1. George Street Blues. Blues before Sunrise. Little Boy Blue. "E" Blues. Shady Lane. Penal Farm Blues. Prestige/Bluesville 1047.

FREE AGAIN. Robert Pete Williams (vocals, guitar). Free Again. Almost Dead Blues. Rolling Stone. Two Wings. A Thousand Miles from Nowhere. Thumbing a Ride. I've Grown So Ugly. Death Blues. Hobo Worried Blues. Hay Cutting Song. Prestige/Bluesville 1026.

These are remarkable recordings of altogether different but exciting vocal and instrumental styles. Francis "Scrapper" Blackwell was the blues guitarist's guitarist. From 1928 until 1935, Blackwell provided a lean, prodding accompani- ment to the rolling blues piano and convincing vocals of his partner, Leroy Carr. When Carr died in 1935, the two had recorded more than one hundred selections for VQcalion and had won widespread acclaim for their musical rapport and per- suasive performance of blues in the boogie and barrel-house tradition of the period.

On his Prestige disk, recorded a year before his death in 1962, Blackwell is revealed a sensitive, contemplative vocalist. Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out is an unqualified triumph, for Blackwell's projection of the rue- ful truth expressed with such majesty by Bessie Smith some 30 years earlier, is poignant and affecting. Except for a jump number, Little Boy Blue, Blackwell's tempos are medium and permit full documentation of his exceptional legato touch, innate sense of harmonics, ingenious use of bent notes, sustained tones, inverted figures, and so on. In sum, the performances are a fitting memorial to a man in whose debt a goodly number of musicians stand.

Robert Pete Williams is, as Harry Oster points out in his album notes, a blues singer of raw intensity and outstanding improvisatory skills. His lyrics are melds of personal experiences and present feelings cast into vocal reality with candor and punctuated and underscored by a guitar style of native brilliance. The directness of his statements is often devastating in its wider meaning: I got up this mornin'/'n I put on my shoes/I strung my shoes/Then I washed my face/I walked to the mirror/For to comb my head/I made a move/Didn't know what to do/I stepped...forward/Started to break and run/Oh, baby; oh, baby/Baby, this ain't me/I done got so ugly, I don't even know myself.

OUT CAME THE BLUES. Lightning Hopkins (vocal, guitar w/bass, drums)--BAD THINGS ON IMY MIND. Georgia White (vocal, piano w/bass, guitar--THE BLUES AIN'T NOTHIN' BUT??. Cousin Joe (vocal) and Sam Price Trio--BEGGIN' WOMAN. Kokomo Arnold (vocal, guitar)--WILD WATER BLUES. Red Nelson (vocal) and Clarence Lofton (piano)--SWEETEST THING BORN. Memphis Minnie (vocal, guitar w/2nd guitar)-- CHICKASAW TRAIN BLUES. Oscar Woods (vocal, guitar)--LONE WOLF BLUES. Joe Turner (vocal) and Pete Johnson Trio--LITTLE BITTIE GAL'S BLUES. Trixie Smith (vocal w/combo)--FREIGHT TRAIN BLUES. Johnny Temple (vocal w/piano, guitar)-- LOUISE, LOUISE, BLUES. Scrapper Blackwell (vocal, guitar w/piano)--NO GOOD WOMAN BLUES. Peetie Wheatstraw (vocal, piano w/bass, piano)--CRAZY WITH THE BLUES. Sleepy John Estes (vocal, guitar w/2nd guitar, harmonica)--VERNITA BLUES. Rosetta Crawford (vocal) with James P. Johnson's Band--MY MAN JUMPED SALTY ON ME. Decca DL hh3h.

Decca has dipped into its extensive blues library to produce a disk certain to whet appetites for more. Eleven of the selections here are from 193h-39, one was recorded in 19hh and another in 19h7, and the Hopkins piece was released in 1953. Most of these are journeyman performances amply documenting the boogie-influenced blues of the cabaret and stage tradition of the 1930's. They are polished (Cousin Joe), predictable (Georgia White), occasionally pedestrian (Johnny Temple). Tracks of considerable musical impact are by Turner-Johnson (Johnson's Piano is superb) and Oscar Woods (the"Lone Wolf's" vocal is effective and his guitar, quietly dramatic). Other great talent is partly obscured: that of Arnold by uneven sound, that of Blackwell by musically mediocre material, that of Estes by one of his less successful recordings. OUT CAME...is nevertheless a provocative beginning. That's what counts.

FURRY LEWIS. Walter "Furry" Lewis (vocals, guitar). Longing Blues. John Henry. I Will Turn Your Money Green. Pearlee Blues. Judge Boushay Blues. I'm Going to Brownsville. Casey Jones. East St. Louis Blues. Folkways FA 3823.

Because his instrumental resources are extensive, Walter "Furry" Lewis brings to mind John Hurt, Robert Johnson, Bukka White and others in this interesting and valuable collection recorded by Samuel Charters in Memphis in 1959.

Lewis's use of bottleneck and podcket knife, the crispness of his finger-picking, and his sense of rhythm and dynamics are exceptional. Further evidence of the flow of song materials among contemporaries crops up in I'm Going to Brownsville, whose melodic counterpart is Sleepy John Estes' The Girl I Love, She Got Long Curly Hair. The drive and momentum which Lewis builds in Casey Jones make this number a highlight. But the wistful mood communicated by East St. Louis Blues, and the assured if controlled swagger (Furry's voice is a gentle one) of I Will Turn Your Money Green LIf you follow me, babe, I turn your money green/ I'll show you more money than Rockefeller ever seen] reflect the scope of the singer's versatility. Two tracks are devoted to comments by the now 63-year-old veteran performer on his early recording career (begun in 1927 for Vocalion) and medicine show experiences.

-- Ronald C. Foreman, Jr. BEN BOTKIN AT ILLINOIS

During the week of November 12, 13, and 14, the Campus Folksong Club and the English Department were host to Dr. Ben Botkin, prominent folklore author and lecturer from Croton-on-Hudson, New York. He spent three days on campus, meeting students and faculty, visiting classes, appearing on WILL-TV's interview series ("One Man's Opinion"), and giving the first lecture of the Club's 1963-64 lecture-seminar series. In his lecture, "The Folklore Revival: Cult or Culture," he spoke of the current revival as being evidence of an increased awareness of folk culture in America, and a desire by persons in various walks of life to preserve it. In the course of his talk, Dr. Botkin brought forth a new term to describe those who sing folk music commercially: finksongers ! Although he did not claim to be the originator of the term, his use of it was typical of the tongue-in-cheek humor which he successfully interjected into his more serious comments on the folklore scene.

Those. who attended the lecture were unanimous in their praise for Dr. Botkin's thought-provoking, scholarly evaluation; those who met Ben informally found him to be even more stimulating as a conversationalist.

One of the questions often in people's minds after talking to Ben is, "How could such a genial and relaxed man find the drive to attain the broad perspectives necessary to write the numerous books and articles which have come to be treasured by folklore scholars and enthusiasts throughout the country?" The answer to this question might well lie in Ben's personality: Ben is a listener, not a talker. Even when discussion includes topics about which he is an expert, he listens carefully to the opinions of the most uninformed member of the group. Ben does not bombard one with facts and figures to support his position; rather, he employs a simple, well-phrased, incisive comment. His mastery of understatement often makes these comments vehicles for good-natured, yet pointed, wit; and the conception of a scholar as a stuffy, condesending individual is soon dispelled.

It is certainly a noteworthy event when our Club is fortunate enough to have a man like Ben as a guest. All those who met him and talked with him were impressed with his sincerity and warmth.

It might be added that Ben was extremely generous in his evaluation of our Club, terming his stay with us one of the most stimulating stops on his recent trip across the United States. He was impressed with the intelligence and interest of Club members, and their talent in performing folksong. We are, of course, most encouraged by his enthusiastic appreciation of the Club.

David Martin HEDY WEST'S SEMINAR

Hedy West's plane was in the air somewhere between New York and Chicago on Friday, the 22nd of November, when the news came that the President was dead.

By the time she arrived in Champaign later that evening public events at the University of Illinois were being cancelled. One of them was our Club's concert, featuring Miss West, to be held the next day, Saturday.

Too stunned in our grief to hold a concert anyway, we simply asked Hedy to present for us the seminar she had planned. So on Saturday afternoon the Executive Committee and a large number of interested members and onlookers gathered in the English building to hear Hody West discuss her work as a collector of Georgia folksong--a seminar that proved to be easily the best held under our Club's auspices since MacEdward Leach lectured here nearly two years ago.

Unlike Leach, who used a tape recorder to reproduce the traditional music he had collected, Hedy brought her banjo and simply played and sang her songs as she had learned them in her own family and from neighbors in the far southern end of the Appalachian chain. Her voice, high and astonishingly clear in its diction, and her unusual banjo style told us immediately what we were missing by sending her back to New York without a full concert.

Most interesting of all, however, were her remarks about collecting and her philosophy of traditional music in general. There were many in the audience who were schocked to discover such views on music, on tradition, and, not the least important, on other performers, some of them almost gods in the temple of tradition.

This reporter, for instance, was taken aback when Hedy remarked candidly that she would not sing songs popularized by other singers, since she had a large repertoire of songs traditional in her family and was in no mood to imitate others, steal their material, and pander to pre-constructed audience preferences for the old pot-boilers. Although the word is frowned on I feel the distinct obligation to call her seminar "educational," since it fulfilled one of the primary tasks of education, i.e., to wrench the student away from preconceived notions and force him to re-evaluate beliefs which he thought well founded and took for granted. A lot of cobwebs were driven out of a lot of brains, and some of our members were in a definite state of confusion before the seminar was finished. Ideas held for three, four, or even more years yielded to the tough and brainy speech of the young lady from Georgia.

Her qualifications were impeccable: birth and upbringing in the mountains of northern Georgia, absorbtion of country music from an early age, formal education in the East, then return to Georgia as an academic and native collector of the local musical idiom. Exposing us for the well meaning but dilletantish louts we are, she continually assaulted the most cherished beliefs of the northern college student about the supposedly picturesque and charmingly rustic Appalachian range and the people who inhabit it. She decried the typical picture held by the northerners of the Southern White, deplored the confusion which pictures the Mississippi flatlander with the Virginia highlander, and crossed swords over and over again with those who imagined a highly integrated and eternally lovable collection of semi-Elizabethan remnants populating the southern mountains. Without a hint of ridicule or sarcasm, Hedy pulled the rug from under what she called "The New England Settlement Ladies" by describing the hard and often dreary circumstances of the southern mountaineer, and remarking in an utterly new fashion the circumstances under which he sang his songs and entertained his family and friends. The result was an eye-opening and often controversial seminar, with several members of the Club simply unable to free themselves from a host of prejudices and notions acquired God-knows-where but evidently nurtured in a favorable soil. It was all the young lady could to to convince them that they simply had not seen enough mountain people or listened to enough music to know whereof they spoke. Although it is not always possible to judge the success of a seminar by the amount of audience participation it seems advisable to do so here; and if we do, then the verdict can only be that this one was one of our most successful; the words that were exchanged, the tempers that flared, and the ignorance and erudition respectively displayed by Club members and guest served notice on us that we have a long way to go. We also learned that a girl in her twenties with brains in her head can be a lot of fun to listen to even if she never sings a note.

Fortunately there was singing too. Thacher Robinson, who recorded the initial tapes for our "Green Fields" disc this spring, invited Miss West and other friends to his home that evening, and the first hour was devoted almost exclusively to her efforts. What attracted the attention of this writer was Hedy's first few songs, ballads most of them, played on an open modal tuning on the banjo. A Pakistani girl was sitting next to me, and she confirmed an opinion I have held for many years but refrained from voicing--that the five-string banjo, played in modal tuning, has an amazingly sharp resemblance to many oriental instruments. The lady from Pakistan was quite taken with the sound of the banjo and spared no words in saying so. Especially on such songs as "The House Car- penter," which Hedy does extremely well, the oriental sound become so dominant that one is forced to ask just whose music is being played after all.

But it should be noted that exoticism was not the main feature of Hedy's artistry. The important part is simple and elegant banjo picking, good, meaty songs (Miss West displayed a reluctance to sing songs she did not consider "very good"), and, best of all, the delightful and never-faltering voice. Perhaps in the future, under more favorable circumstances, we can have her here again and turn her prodigious talents loose on the general public.

F. K. Plous, Jr.

HOOTENANIY Article Explores CFC Activities, Sets UI Folk Music Scene for National Audience

An article by Archie Green, "Campus Report-University of Illinois," reports activities of the Campus Folk Song Club for readers of the March, 196)4, issue of HOOTENANNY, now on the news stands. A summary of CFC history in relation to local and national interest in folk music, the article draws attention to the scope of activities associated with CFC and outlines CFC approaches to questions of organization, adminis- tration, and philosophy. (See: HOOTENANNY, March, 1964, pp. 23-24, 63-64.)