Sometimes, I actually listened

[I set up two blogs so as to keep at least two of the parts of my life in some kind of order. THen somebody pointed out that a number of posts in http://sowhyisit.blogspot.com/ work just as well here. OK, so here is the first, and the rest will follow. I'll just have to find the time to edit the others down a tad. This one is just a straight "cut, paste, and try to justify" exercise.]

It's 1966, I'm in the tunnels under the Greek Theater, UC Berkeley, trying to get the strings on my 6-string banjo into some semblance of tune (I was going to be backing up Shlomo Carlebach, and I was more than a little nervous). The echoes down there are really something (or were at the time), and I try out one of my more "impressive" licks. I look up, and there's this old guy (hey, I was 19. EVERYBODY over 30 was old) listening to me. He smiles, taps his foot, and asks if I sing the words. Showing off, I sing a verse with an even more ornate accompaniment. He listens politely, then suggests I might like to do less on the banjo so that the words can take the lead.

This one one of the few times in those days I showed common sense. I listened, tried the next verse with a basic sort of accompaniment, and was rewarded with another smile. As I was making my way to the backstage area, one of the group I was with came up and demanded to know "What did he say? Did he like the song? Did he have any suggestions?" It took me a moment to realize that the old guy who looked kind of like Pete Seeger really WAS Pete Seeger, and that I'd just gotten some advice to which I had better listen.

I doubt he'd even remember the exchange, but for me, it was a major big deal thing. For the entire time I was performing, I kept the idea in the back of my head: let the words take the lead. It applies across the board. Decide why you're doing something, and focus on that.

As I was a wandering.....

....through the San Francisco Folk Music Club's website (sffmc.org), I spied an odd reference a-playing midst the prose.

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006448.html

Go, read, but swallow any liquid you may be sipping prior to either. I just relived the sensation of having coffee run out my nose. That hadn't happened for some time. Actually, I believe the last time involved milk, a cafeteria table, and the realization that I was never, ever going to impress the cute girl at the next table as any kind of cool after that......but, then as now, the laugh was worth it.

Pointless things.......

are often the only ones worth arguing about.

In the 1960's we spent a lot of time arguing about what was or was not folk music. All right, it was about as relevant as defining Science Fiction, Truth, Love, really good scotch, or any other thing that can exist very well regardless of the number of people who believe in it.

I don't think we ever decided anything.......said discussions were usually held in the candle hours of parties where not being able to remember much was considered a positive review.

So when I describe myself as an unreconstructed folkie, I am thoroughly aware that I am telling you very little. I did live through the Great Folk Scare. I do still keep a guitar in the car when I go to parties. I will be quite happy to play for anybody who can get the room singing. I usually have a thumbpick in my pocket (or looped over the earpiece of my glasses), and I cherish memories of places and people of which and whom most of you will never have heard.

I do believe in The Folk Process. I also believe in Oral Tradition, and I am quite prepared to let you talk about "learning a song from Blind Boy McNasty" when we both know you got it off his record, or out of a songbook, or off a lead sheet that you found in your cousin's gig bag pouch. I'll defend this later, if I can get to the point where I understand it, myself.

I make psalterium harps and Glastonbury drums. I occasionally sell them on the web, either on eBay or via www.psaltoftheearth.com. I play guitar, 6-string zithertop banjo, and hand/frame drums with a modicum of skill. There are a whole bunch of instruments where I can manage a tune or two, or keep up with others.

So I am a folky psaltseller, amongst other things. Nice to meet you. Please come back again.