Songwriters are myth makers. In ancient tribes, there was always a person who wore the role of the shaman. They were the chanter, the dancer, the healer. That person was in charge of connecting to divine energy and bringing down the magic for practical use on the Earth plane. That's what songwriters do.
Songs are the stuff of transformation.
When you think of it that way, it's easy to see that not only can music never die, if it could, it would take us all with it. It's as necessary as oxygen maybe more so. I didn't hear the tally on just how many songwriters showed up to participate in the Songwriter's Invitational 2001, but I suspect it was a lot. That means that the Black Hills is still the fertile ground that I've always suspected, and that we do have the stuff necessary to build and maintain an incredible artist's colony here. The Muse speaks loudly and to many ears in the midst of this kind of natural beauty.