Jean Ritchie: Ballads from her Appalachian Family Tradition

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 British Traditional Ballads in the Southern Mountains brings her clear, pure voice and timeless songs to new generations of listeners.

Track Listing

101	Gypsy Laddie	Jean Ritchie	02:50
102	False Sir John (Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight)	Jean Ritchie	04:21
103	Hangman (The Maid Freed from the Gallows)	Jean Ritchie	02:00
104	Lord Bateman	Jean Ritchie	06:05
105	The House Carpenter	Jean Ritchie	04:22
106	Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender	Jean Ritchie	05:30
107	The Merry Golden Tree (The Golden Vanity)	Jean Ritchie	02:12
108	Old Bangum	Jean Ritchie	01:56
109	Barbary Allen	Jean Ritchie	05:04
110	The Unquiet Grave	Jean Ritchie	04:00
111	Sweet William and Lady Margaret	Jean Ritchie	06:53
112	There Lived an Old Lord (The Two Sisters)	Jean Ritchie	05:29
113	Cherry Tree Carol	Jean Ritchie	03:48
114	Edward	Jean Ritchie	02:35
115	Lord Randall	Jean Ritchie	02:54
116	Little Musgrave (Mattie Groves)	Jean Ritchie	12:02