Jean Ritchie - Ballads from her Appalachian Family Tradition (1961)

A crystalline-clear voice and a tireless preservation of traditional music are two of the contibutions to folk music that Jean Ritchie is most respected for, and both shine on the Smithsonian/Folkways release "Ballads from Her Appalachian Family Tradition". Mostly a cappella, with a few songs accompanied by dulcimer, these children's ballads are alternately warm and chilling, achingly beautiful and as stark as the bones of the balladeers who wrote the songs hundreds of years ago. The bright melody of "Barbary Allen" could be chanted as a playground rhyme or sung as a funeral hymn, and the brutal love triangle in "Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender" resolves with a higher body count than a Sam Peckinpah film, but with the heartbreaking romance of a Merchant Ivory production. The extensive liner notes stray toward the academic, but certainly drive home the point that these songs are older than the original 1961 release date, older than recorded music, and the sentiments found in all of the songs date back to the dawn of language and beyond. Despite all of the long-carved gravestones and lovelorn bloodshed, these recordings still manage to sound warm and familiar as a mother's lullaby, and pull off the remarkable feat of being a historically important document and wonderful to listen to. - Zac Johnson.

Jean Ritchie was born into a large and musical family in Viper, Kentucky in 1922. The Ritchie family was very much a part of the Appalachian folk tradition, and had committed over 300 songs (including hymns, traditional love songs, ballads, children's game songs, etc.) to its collective memory, a tradition that Ritchie has drawn on (as well as preserved and maintained) for the entire length of her performing career. She grew up in a home where singing was intertwined with nearly every task, and the beautiful, ephemeral nature of these mountain songs and fragments was not lost on her. After graduating from high school, Ritchie attended Cumberland Junior College in Williamsburg, Ky., moving on to the University of Kentucky, where she graduated in 1946. She accepted a position at the Henry Street Settlement in New York City and soon found her family's songs useful in reaching out to the children in her care. Her singing, although she never had a strong pop sort of voice, was perfect for the old ballads, especially when she accompanied herself on lap dulcimer, and the ancient modal melodies of her family felt fresh and airy in her hands. Ritchie soon found herself in demand in the New York coffeehouses, and her official career in music began. After hearing some casually recorded songs by Ritchie, Jac Holzman, who was just starting up Elektra Records, signed her to the label, eventually releasing three albums, Jean Ritchie Sings (1952), Songs of Her Kentucky Mountain Family (1957) and A Time for Singing (1962) at the height of the folk revival. Although she never reached the household name status of Peter, Paul & Mary, Joan Baez, Judy Collins or the Kingston Trio, Ritchie maintained her Appalachian authenticity, and her subsequent albums worked to preserve the rich folk tradition of the Southern Appalachians. Among her many releases are two from Smithsonian Folkways, Ballads From Her Appalachian Family Tradition and Child Ballads in America, None but One (which won a Rolling Stone Critics Award in 1977), High Hills and Mountains, Kentucky Christmas, and The Most Dulcimer. Married to the photographer George Pickow, the couple has re-released many of her albums on their own Greenhays Recordings imprint. - Steve Leggett

Jean Ritchie is a national treasure, one of America's finest and best known traditional singers. She grew up in Viper, Kentucky, and is part of a large family, the famous "Singing Ritchies of Kentucky." The ballads on this recording are outstanding Appalachian versions of the "Child ballads," English and Scottish narrative songs collected and published by scholar Francis James Child in the late 19th century. The songs tell of true and lost love, jealousy, treachery, grief, death, and the supernatural. This reissue of her landmark Folkways recordings of British traditional ballads in Appalachia brings her clear, pure voice and timeless songs to new generations of listeners. : ~ Smithsonian Folkways

Issued originally on two Folkways LPs, "Jean Ritchie - Ballads from her Appalachian Family Tradition" is a stunning collection of sixteen Child ballads sung by one of the most outstanding singers ever to emerge from the Appalachian singing tradition. Three of the ballads have dulcimer accompaniment, the rest are sung unaccompanied.

Tracklist:
01.Gypsy Laddie
02.False Sir John
03.Hangman
04.Lord Bateman
05.House Carpenter, The
06.Lord Thomas And Fair Ellender
07.Merry Golden Tree, The
08.Old Bangum
09.Barbary Allen
10.Unquiet Grave, The
11.Sweet William And Lady Margret
12.There Lived An Old Lord
13.Cherry Tree Carol
14.Edward
15.Lord Randall
16.Little Musgrave


Jean Ritchie - Ballads from her Appalachian Family Tradition (1961)
(320 kbps, cover art included)