When I was sixteen, I wanted devoutly to be Mary Travers. I wanted the blonde hair she swung so saucily onstage, I wanted her awesome cheek bones, but most of all I wanted her rich alto voice. I did what I could in my small-town way, forming a group called "Three Hoots and Annie." So pathetic, that name. A desperate play on the term hootenanny, which was used at the time to denote the many folk-music gatherings going on around the country. I staged a show at our high school, convincing my classmates they were really folkies at heart. It was a small school. About 25% of us performed, and the other 75% showed up to cheer us on. What else was there to do on a Friday night, once football season was over?
The Three Hoots and I went on to perform at Rotary Club and various other homely functions. The capstone of our success was being invited to appear on a Phoenix television show whose name by happy chance I can't recall. It could have been "Folk Sing," but I won't swear to it. In any case, I do remember my family bunching up around the television set on a Saturday afternoon, myself included, to partake of our celebrity. Title, fade-in, and there we were, in glorious black and white -- Sandy on guitar, Mike on banjo, Teri on upright bass, and I, the Mary Travers wannabe, warbling sincerely and unmistakably off-key. Thank God there were no re-runs.
There was a folk club in Scottsdale, Baboquivari, where legitimate singers performed, and dates invariably took me there, bless them. It's where I wanted to go. We'd sip warm apple cider and listen to the resident folkie croon "Scotch and Soda" or whatever else the Kingston Trio had popularized. And then, poof, the folk trend gave way to the wondrous insanity of The Beatles, and that was that.
Until now. Witness Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes single-handedly resurrecting interest. I say this knowing he's not alone, of course, but wishing to pay tribute to how wonderfully he does it. If you haven't seen the tour doc he posted from this Spring, when he opened for Joanna Newsom, you're in for a treat.
