The Underground Railroad of Folk music

Every newsletter I tirade about something involving life as a traveling minstrel, sometimes complaining and sometimes waxing philosophical. This year I do not feel like chewing anybody out-- in fact, I want to thank a lot of people. I started out as a populist musician, playing for people wherever we were: at parties, on streetcorners, in taverns- anywhere, paying little attention to showbiz or music industry concerns. And now 25 years and 4 or 5 thousand gigs later, not much has changed. I still do some shows every year in the high-profile music clubs and festivals, but the bulk of my living is made in settings where the hands of Hollywood and Disney and MTV are far, far away. I still play house concerts in people's homes, and I play in churches and grange halls and schools, and I do workshops and concerts in music stores, usually small, privately-owned shops rather than giant chains. There are a lot of grass-roots organizations and individuals that put on concert series for musicians...