Reading through a book by Ronald D. Cohen called Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940-1970 and came across some amazing stories of the early folk revival around 1960-62 when people like Ralph Rinzler brought Clarence Ashley to play for new urban folk audiences. Here is a quote from Rinzler:
"And how these guys who were used to getting up and doing vaudeville, black faced and slapstick, Tom [Ashley] actually was still doing black face with cork, burned cork in Round City, Tennessee at the time. Now I couldn't let him get up and tell nigger jokes on the stage, but he would have if I, someone didn't tell him." p. 173
There is another story of JE Mainer wanting to do one of his old routines called "Sambo Sues Eliza for Divorce," and forgetting his black make-up, and Jon Pankake then had to convince JE that there simply was no place to find such make up in Minneapolis.
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