I read once about how some of the words, phrases, sentence structures, and pronunciations of what today might be considered to be a "mountain hillbilly" way of speaking... evolved directly from old Gaelic language.
Cecil Sharpe, who traveled through Appalachia over a century ago, was also struck by the number of old English ballads being sung in the region. I do not find it surprising.
People tell stories. Perhaps not all people, but all peoples. Nowadays, we read books, watch TV or movies, or listen to the radio or podcasts or whatever. But before modern mass media, stories were oral, and some of those stories came in the form of songs. A ballad is just a song that tells a story. I don't find it surprising either that Jean Ritchie's family sang so many ballads or that so many of those ballads were ancient ones from the old world. Old stories still have something to teach us, even stories from distant lands long ago. Even if only implicitly, they tell us who we are and where we came from. We still read and tell stories from the Bible, from the ancient world, from Elizabethan England, and so forth. The ballads the Ritchie family sung were just part of the cultural repertoire they inherited, shared, and passed on.
What makes American folk music so rich, I think, is that those English ballads mixed here with other traditions: African-American field hollers and blues, work songs, native American chanting, Caribbean syncopation, spirituals, sea shanties, railroad songs, cowboy songs, etc. And the music was not merely replicated, but expanded upon and rendered "modern" through new lyrics, new chords, new rhythms and tempos. The Irish ballad The Wexford Girl was given new lyrics as the Knoxville Girl to tell the story of an American murder. The Scottish song about migration to North America, The Bold Princess Royal, was given new lyrics as Sweet Betsy from Pike, the story of westward migration in the United States. Rosin the Beau was used for the campaign song Lincoln and Liberty, the abolitionist Roll on Liberty Ball, and the song about settling in the Pacific Northwest, Acres and Acres of Clams. But even when we add modern lyrics and chords to an old ballad, we still, as is the case with Rosin the Beau, sometimes sing the original versions as well. Just because Bob Dylan wrote great lyrics to Fare Thee Well doesn't mean no one sings The Leaving of Liverpool anymore. Just because Elvis made lots of cash with Love Me Tender doesn't mean people don't sing Aura Lee from time to time.
Ballads served as "entertainment," as @john-c-knopf says, but they were also news, biographies, moral fables, histories, and so much more.
I'm sure there are lots of reasons people might be drawn to older music and stories, but it is not surprising to me at all. We still find Barbara Allen to be a compelling ballad, just as we find Antony and Cleopatra to be a compelling tragedy.
If memory serves, many songs in the Ritchie family came from "Uncle Jason" and Jean wrote of this in Singing Family of the Cumberlands .
https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2015/06/jean-ritchie-1922-2015/
Here is a link for the Jean Ritchie group here at FOTMD:
https://fotmd.com/strumelia/group/24/fans-of-jean-ritchie
Thanks, John, very insightful.
I listened to her rendition of Barbry Allan this morning and was taken by her ending every verse on scale step 2. I kept thinking that perhaps she might resolve it in the final verse, but she did not, which was perhaps fitting, given the lyrics.
Alex, I think it was for family continuity and for entertainment in a time where computers, TVs and to some extent radio was non-existent. Folks had to have entertainment of SOME kind, and this was an enjoyable way to spend some family time.
One thing I've noticed is how many of these songs dealt with disasters, death, sickness, loss of dear ones, etc. Theirs was a hard existence in a hilly country that made farming and life in general very difficult. The tunes often were in minor keys as well.
Hi,
A good week to you all.
I've been doing a deep dive into Jean Ritchie lately, for the dulcimer of course, but also for the words of the ballads. What has struck me is that so many of these songs were even centuries old and from distant lands. You all know this, of course. But I find it so interesting that Kentucky folk would preserve lyrics that were so far removed from their day to day life. We're all glad they did, but one must also wonder why. (Needless to say, new songs were being composed as well.)
Does anyone who knows more about this than me have any insights they'd like to share? That would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance and have a great week.
