Plagiarism Is Basic To All Culture

He [alan Lomax] Started Right Off Trying To Find People Who Could Introduce Folk Songs To City People. He Found A Young Actor Named Burl Ives And Said, "burl, You Know A Lot Of Great Country Songs Learned From Your Grandmother, Don't You Know People Would Love To Hear Them?" He Put On Radio Programs. He Persuaded Cbs To Dedicate "the School Of The Air" For One Year To American Folk Music. He'd Get Some Old Sailor To Sing An Old Sea Shanty With A Cracked Voice. Then He'd Get Me To Sing It With My Banjo.

And There's A Wonderful Parable In The New Testament: The Sower Scatters Seeds. Some Seeds Fall In The Pathway And Get Stamped On, And They Don't Grow. Some Fall On The Rocks, And They Don't Grow. But Some Seeds Fall On Fallow Ground, And They Grow And Multiply A Thousandfold. Who Knows Where Some Good Little Thing That You've Done May Bring Results Years Later That You Never Dreamed Of?

Now Any Person Who Plays An Acoustic Guitar Standing Up On Stage With A Microphone Is A Folk Singer. Some Grandmother With A Baby In Her Arms Singing A 500-year-old Song, Well, She's Not A Folk Singer, She's Not On Stage With A Guitar And A Microphone. No, She's Just An Old Grandmother Singing An Old Song. The Term "folk Singer" Has Gotten Warped.

There Is A Big, Beautiful World That Could Be Destroyed By Selfishness And Foolishness. We Musicians Have It Without Power To Save It. In A Small Way, Every Single One Of Us Counts.

I'm Still A Communist In The Sense That I Don't Believe The World Will Survive With The Rich Getting Richer And The Poor Getting Poorer - I Think That The Pressures Will Get So Tremendous That The Social Contract Will Just Come Apart.