In the summer of 1959, Marsha, Dick and I formed a trio. We called ourselves "The Old Town Singers." The name came from the Old Town School of Folk Music, where we had met. We rehearsed for weeks, but to my recollection, never did a paying gig. When the Limeliters hired me to accompany them on their RCA live LP in 1960, I left Chicago, and lived on the road for the next few years.
It's interesting to think what might have happened if I'd stayed in Chicago and continued to perform with "The Old Town Singers." We formed about two years before Peter Paul and Mary.
This is a practice recording made on a reel to reel Pentron tape recorder at 7 1/2 IPS. The tape was broken in two places and spliced, causing the slight jumps in audio quality.
The purpose of the Folk Den is to use the medium of the World Wide Web to continue the tradition of the folk process, that is the telling of stories, and singing of songs, passed on from one generation to another, by word of mouth.
In this electronic era, such a process is in danger of being overwhelmed by the commercial mass media. This page and others on the 'net are working to preserve the folk songs that have chronicled our global heritage for centuries.
In the Folk Den, a "new" folk song is uploaded every month as a "Global Community Service."
