Jean's ballad & song legacy

Here on Friends of the Mountain Dulcimer, we naturally tend to think of how Jean Ritchie has inspired us in terms of playing the mountain dulcimer.In fact, it was through playing the dulcimer that I 'stumbled upon' Jean Ritchie and was just floored by her.I remember when I first began to buy and listen to Jean's recordings, I was mildly annoyed to have to sift through a whole bunch of 'songs' in order to find the good dulcimer pieces. LOL! I was so clueless!Happily, over time, listening to Jean's music inspired a whole other musical path in my life- it introduced me to a vast world of traditional songs and ballads which up until then I had pretty much overlooked. How much I had been missing! There is really so much more to Jean's talents and knowledge than 'just' the dulcimer. Traveling along this 'new' aspect of my musical journey has enriched not only my musical life but my day to day life as well.Here is a lovely and very old ballad, "Four Marys", sung unaccompanied in unison by Jean and her sister Edna: Incidentally, I have tabbed a noter version of "Four Marys" HERE , on my dulcimer noter/drone blog.