Edna Ritchie of Viper, Kentucky

Edna Ritchie is an older sister of the famed musician and lap-dulcimer revivalist Jean Ritchie. Theirs was an important family of tradition-bearers from southeastern Kentucky, significant for the popularization of many traditional British and Irish songs first collected by folklorist Cecil Sharp during his historic trips to Appalachia in the early 20th century. While Jean has a prolific catalog of recordings, this is the only album to feature Edna exclusively. Though she performed music and built a repertoire all her life, Ritchie’s focus was as an English teacher and librarian in Perry County. The songs, ballads, and carols of her rich family tradition are presented here in an intimate, unpretentious, but deeply tuneful style, sung both unaccompanied and with a dulcimer—the instrument most associated with her family.