Mathematician,* banjo-player and New Lost City Rambler.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/ob ... story.html

And crucial link between the great folk scare and the full-bore folk revival.

Years ago I had a brief contact with him via the medium of banjo-L. I'd been listening to the 78-era Allen Bros recording A New Salty Dog, and puzzling over the lyrics. I could tell - it's obvious - that I was hearing a euphemism, and from the tone it was likely risqué. But I had no idea what it might signify. So I asked the list, and Tom Paley, to the horror of some other members, enlightened me. Back in the 30s, he said, a Salty Dog was a practitioner of oral sex in general, and cunnilingis in particular. Most of the list had no idea. "Oh no, I played it in church," one fellow wailed. I've always thought that was pretty funny.


*Actually, I first typed "methematician", which isn't what I meant at all.

_________________
And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')

C.S. Lewis