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When I was in high school, I had a few experiences that set me on this course. One
was listening to records in school. I got on the ‘honor’ roll one time, and that allowed
me to go to the library and listen to records. Miss Clark, the librarian, noticed that I

only listened to Folk Music of various kinds, and when that Folkways record of Big
Bill, Sonny and Brownie being interviewed on WFMT by Studs Terkel came in (“Blues
with Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee”, Ed) , she let me break it in.

That was it! It was key! I
memorized that record and still
Maria Muldaur, Geoff Muldaur and Jim Kweskin (The
play most of the songs on it.
Kweskin Jug Band Band)

For my 17th birthday, I got a
guitar lesson from Jim Kweskin.
25 bucks (that was in 1963, mind

you). He sent me upstairs, told me
to tune up and arrived a few
minutes later with his guitar and

an alarm clock set for half an hour.
I gave him the dough, and he
asked me to play something for

him. I played Shuffle Rag. He gave
me my money back and said, 'Get
outa here, you play better than I

do! Go play, everywhere you can.' And that's just what I did.)

Following that experience, my older brother brought me to the Brandeis Folk Festival
a year later. In quick succession, there was the Kweskin Jug Band (with Bill Keith!),

the Ramblers, Roscoe Holcombe, the Georgia Sea Island Singers and Rev. Davis.

In the middle of Rev's set, here come the Georgia Sea Island Singers back out and
the had church right in front of all those Jewish kids. They went nuts! And I said to

myself, I've got to learn to do that, to exert needlepoint pressure on an audience,
and actually change them a little bit.

When I got to the University of Illinois, I was under the aegis of Archie Green and

the Campus Folksong Club. Archie had been a union organizer and was going to grad
school in Industrial and Labor Relations. I don't know if he finished, because from

about then on his life was Folk Music and More Folk Music. Notwithstanding the
people he'd brought there before I went there, I got to see Dock Boggs, Mike Seeger,
Robert Pete Williams, Kevin Henry, Clayton McMichen, the Staples Singers and many
more important though not well known folk musicians. That was my real education,

on top of what I already knew about from my dad. It was One Big Thing and it was
all mine!

After several years I dropped out of school and moved to Chicago. I played whatever

gigs I could get, one of which was at the No Exit, way up on the North Side. Every