to 78 rpm recordingsof folk singer Woody Guthrie, blues singer Josh White, The Almanac Singers, Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson (who was the “patron saint” of the camp), union songs and songs of the Spanish Civil War. It was a life-changing experience for him. He began teaching himself the guitar when he returned home from camp. Jerry returned to Wo-Chi-Ca (with guitar) in 1946, and as a counselor in 1947 and 1948, where he met Joe Jaffe, who played banjo and guitar with Seeger occasionally. Jerry started studying with Joe at the Neighborhood Music School in 1947. In 1948, Jaffe suggested that Jerry take over as the guitar teacher at the School when he left. Jerry graduated from Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx in 1948, enrolled in CCNY (City College of New York) in Spring 1949 and graduated in Spring 1952 with a B.S. degree in Music. He was the first “non-classical” music major to earn that degree. In 1955 he earned a Master’s degree in Musicology at NYU (New York University). The subject of his master’s dissertation: “THE BLUES GUITAR – As Illustrated by the Practices of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) and Josh White.” The research he conducted on blues led directly to the publication in 1958 by MacMillan of his first book: “Folk Blues”, which contains 110 traditional blues arranged for voice, piano and guitar. Here is a brief excerpt from the introduction to the book which sets the tone of the work: “In spite of the perennial popularity of blues songs…no collection has ever been available before now. I became aware of the scarcity of published scholarly material dealing with the blues and the complete absence of any general folk blues collections before now while doing graduate work in music at New York University. Since then, as a teacher and professional performer, I have been plagued by this glaring and inexplicable sin of omission – so much so that I decided to do the job myself.” Sing Out! Magazine In 1951, Silverman began writing music transcriptions and arrangements for the new monthly publication ‘’Sing Out!, The Folksong Magazine’’. Eventually, he took on full responsibility as the Music Editor. Fundraising for the magazine led to well-publicized Hootenannys, which were led by Pete Seeger, and where Silverman performed regularly. Many of these “hoots” were recorded on LP, and a notable recording of "Mule-Skinner Blues" included Silverman