To a lot of casual listeners during the early '60s, the New Christy Minstrels were the embodiment of popular folk music. If they're not remembered (or written about) in a very serious way, it's mostly because of their image: ten well-scrubbed, usually smiling young men and women singing upbeat songs about Paul Bunyan or hopping freight trains, or doing optimistic renditions of Woody Guthrie tunes.