I toured with folksinger and banjoist Bill Crofut for many years with our bizarre program Folk and Baroque, which combined harpsichord and banjo in a varied repertoire - Bach, Vivaldi, Ragtime, Folk and, yes, Bartók. It was in the latter's works that the harpsichord most resembled the enchanting Hungarian cymbalom. Our 1975 session, engineered by Michael Whiton, was recorded at the studio of that famous member of the Weavers, Fred Hellerman, which he bought, according to his son Caleb, "with Alice's Restaurant money". This plaintive Adieu is an authentic Slovak folksong [Este sa raz obzriet mam], listed as #80 [Bucsu] in the complete For Children collection, and variously translated as I look back upon you once more or Have a look again. [A version can be found on youtube, sung by Janko Blaho.] In Bartók's setting, Bill always played his tenor banjo, a huge monstrosity that looked awful but sounded gorgeous. One night he turned up without it, explaining to me that it was too heavy to carry. Bill, the genius story-teller, however, told quite a different tale to the audience - they heard about how he had left the tenor banjo in his barn and how his horse had stepped on it.