The Almanac Singers

"Shortly afterwards, Pete [Seeger] invited me to meet his friends, The Almanac Singers, with whom he shared a huge loft on the West 10th Street. As I climbed the stairs, the smell of baking bread assailed my senses. The baker was Lee Hayes, a member of the group, an ex-lay preacher from Arkansas. Lee a corpulent man with a relaxed air and an "all-welcome" smile, greeted me with a flour-dusted handshake, and invited me to try the bread just out of the oven. 'Folk songs,' he mused as we kneaded another batch of dough, 'Well, I'll make one up right now, if you like!' That remark exploded another old myth; a song doesn't have to be old, doesn't have to have a long beard, before it can be called a 'folk song'".

Around the World in 80 Years: A Memoir, Henrietta Yurchenco