In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

135 Baby, Let Me Follow You Down mix!I’dbeeninNashvillelessthanayear.TwoorthreemonthslaterIwas drivingsomewhereupintheNortheast.ItwasaSaturdaynight,soImade astabattuninginTheGrandOleOpry.Almostimmediatelythroughthe static I heard George Hamilton IV singing, “She was only the best, No need to sit here and cry.” I couldn’t help it. My eyes filled up and I had to pullover.Adreamhadcometrue.Ihadturnedthatroughmorning-after up in Magog a few years back into a song that was now going out in the world. Judy had given me that. In addition, I could now ask ASCAP for an advance, so that also helped ease the financial pressure. BABY, LET ME FOLLOW YOU DOWN Late in the summer I went up to Eric Von Schmidt’s place in Henniker, New Hampshire, to help him celebrate the sale of a big painting of Custer’sLastStandtotheWesternMuseumatWichitaStateUniversity. It was a great reunion of the old Cambridge crowd. Geoff Muldaur was there with Sheila. Fritz Richmond had come from California where he wasworkingasPaulRothchild’srecordingengineer.Therewereacouple of new additions to Eric’s circle of friends, Darlene Wilson and Chance Browne, members of “The Cruel Family,” in which Eric, of course was Father Cruel, who coined the family motto, “We Do Not Compromise withReality.”ChancehadplayedguitarwithmealongwithEverettAlan and Tennis, on a torture tour of the Northeast the previous winter. We were all sick at one time or another. To add insult to injury, the money wasn’t very good either. Although Chance loved to play guitar, he was really a cartoonist. After the final gig he presented me with a cartoon showing the motor home being beset by three figures like they used to bedrawninthecornerofoldmaps.Chanceexplainedthemtome.“This oneistheNorthWind;thisoneisPestilenceandDisease;andthisone,” pointing to the central figure who had bushy pointed eyebrows and a satyr’s leer, “is the Winds of Sarcasm!” I had evidently cut Chance, who was a sweet, sweet person, with my rapier wit. It told me that I needed to be nicer to nice people. However,thatwinterwasfarbehindus.TherewasafullAugustmoon overhead. Eric had a big side of beef, and we made a pit and set about roastingitallnightlong.Ofcourse,wehadtostayupandbastethebeef. 136 FINDING MY OWN VOICE By the end of the night Eric and I were well basted ourselves and had hatched the idea to put together a book about our former life and the folk scene back in Cambridge. Even in the light of day, hung over as we were, the idea stuck, so I decided to stay around for another day or two, and Eric and I put our heads together. Eric had done a lot of illustrating of children’s books in addition to his work on the Joan Baez songbooks, so he was experienced in what it takestoputabooktogether.Ihadmyownexperiencedoing Bossmen,so we both felt like this was something we were equipped to do. The very first thing we did was to make an outline of the history of the scene, which would have been from 1958 to 1968. Between us, one or the other of us had been present throughout the whole ten years, so we had the advantage of being eyewitnesses. Eric rummaged around and immediately came up with some photographs and fliers and posters he had designedforMannyGreenhill’svariousconcertseriesandtheNewport Folk Festival. Right from the start we had the idea that this would be an illustrated story and that the visual material would play an important part. We each set out to write something about our own recollections, and we wrote to a number of the people who had been part of the scene asking them what they thought of the idea, inviting them to contribute by writing something or sending us pictures or anything else. The response was favorable, and we got the go-ahead to appoint ourselves “class historians.” ShortlybeforeHalloweenEricwasawakenedinthemiddleofthenight bysomeonebangingonthefrontdoor.Hethoughtitwassomekidsgetting an early start on Halloween, but when he opened the door a man shouted, “Is there anyone else in the house?” Eric was half asleep and befuddled at first and couldn’t figure out why he’d be asking this question , until he noticed a strange orange backlight behind the man. The new studio was on fire. The volunteer fire department arrived, sprayed thebackwallofthehouseandmanagedtosaveit,butthebigbarnonthe other side of the studio had a lot of old hay in it and went up like a torch. The whole studio was gone, but fortunately Eric had not yet moved into it. He still had all of his artwork, all of his historical artifacts, all of his musicandrecords,whichwasablessing.Iknewnothingaboutthisuntil I got an invitation in the mail to come to “Charcoal City” for a cleanup party!Icouldn’tbelieveit.LeaveittoErictoturnadisasterintoanexcuse [18.188...

Share