When I was four years old, I made my singing debut at my father's family reunion in southwestern Virginia. I sang Hank Williams, Sr.'s "Your Cheatin' Heart." I've been singing ever since. My father took me to my first coffeehouse somewhere around 1960--the Golden Vanity. It was magic. The performers actually played the music I loved, from traditional to topical songs. Add to the equation the fact that my father, whose Virginia roots took him to the music of the Carter Family, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, and Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers, to name a few, and the seeds for "Singing Along with the Radio" were sewn. During high school in the 1960s, I became interested in contemporary folk songs--Peter, Paul and Mary, Judy Collins, Joan Baez, the Kingston Trio, the Weavers, the Brothers Four, Bob Dylan. Sure, I loved the Beatles, too, but it was the music with a message that moved me. Those were turbulent times, and many of my contemporarie...