Jean Ritchie
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Ritchie playing the dulcimer, c. 1950s
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| Born | Jean Ruth Ritchie (1922-12-08)December 8, 1922
Viper, Kentucky, U.S.
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| Died | June 1, 2015(2015-06-01) (aged 92)
Berea, Kentucky, U.S.
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| Education | University of Kentucky |
| Occupation | Folk musician |
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(m. 1950; died 2010) |
Jean Ruth Ritchie (December 8, 1922 – June 1, 2015) was an American folk singer, songwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player,[1] called by some the "Mother of Folk".[2] In her youth she learned hundreds of folk songs in the traditional way (orally, from her family and community), many of which were Appalachian variants of centuries old British and Irish songs, including dozens of Child Ballads.[3][4] In adulthood, she shared these songs with wide audiences,[5] as well as writing some of her own songs using traditional foundations.[4]
She is ultimately responsible for the revival of the Appalachian dulcimer, the traditional instrument of her community, which she popularized by playing the instrument on her albums and writing tutorial books.[4]
She also spent time collecting folk music in the United States and in Britain and Ireland,[6][7] in order to research the origins of her family songs and help preserve traditional music.[4]
She inspired a wide array of musicians, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Shirley Collins, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris and Judy Collins.[5][2][8]
Jean Ritchie was born to Abigail (née Hall) Ritchie (1877–1972) and Balis Wilmar Ritchie (1869–1958) of Viper, an unincorporated community in Perry County in the Cumberland Mountains of southeastern Kentucky.[1] The Ritchies of Perry County were one of the two "great ballad-singing families" of Kentucky celebrated among folk song scholars (the other was the Combs family of adjacent Knott County, whose repertoire formed the basis of the first scholarly work on the British ballads in America, a doctoral thesis by Professor Josiah Combs of Berea College for the Sorbonne University published in Paris in 1925).[9] Jean's father Balis had printed up a book of old songs entitled Lovers' Melodies[10] in 1910 or 1911, which contained the most popular songs in Hindman at that time, including "Jackaro," "Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender," "False Sir John and May Colvin" and "The Lyttle Musgrave."[11] However, Balis preferred playing the Appalachian dulcimer to singing, often singing entire ballads in his head along with his dulcimer playing.[12] In 1917, the folk music collector Cecil Sharp collected songs from Jean's older sisters May (1896–1982) and Una (1900–1989),[13][14][15] whilst her sister Edna (1910–1997) also learnt the old ballads, much later releasing her own album of traditional songs with dulcimer accompaniment.[16] Most of the Ritchie siblings seemed dedicated to performing and preserving traditional music.[17] Many of the Ritchies attended the Hindman Settlement School, a folk school where students were encouraged to cherish their own backgrounds and where Sharp found many of his songs.[18] It is possible that many of the Ritchies' songs were absorbed from neighbors, relatives, friends, school mates and even books, as well as being passed through the family.[11]
The paternal ancestors of the Ritchie family, Alexander Ritchie (1725–1787)[19] and his son James Ritchie Sr. (1757–1818) of Stewarton, East Ayrshire, Scotland,[20] emigrated to the United States. James Ritchie Sr. fought in the Revolutionary War in 1776 (including at the Siege of Yorktown), and lived in Virginia before settling on Carr Creek Lake in what is now Knott County, Kentucky, with his family. When he drowned in the lake in 1818,[11] his family moved back to Virginia except his son Alexander Crockett Ritchie Sr. (1778–1878), Jean Ritchie's great-great-grandfather.[21]
Most of the Ritchies later fought on the Confederate Side in the Civil War, including Jean's paternal grandfather Justice Austin Ritchie (1834–1899), who was 2nd Lieutenant of Company C of the 13th Kentucky Confederate Cavalry.[22]
Alan Lomax wrote that:
They were quiet, thoughtful folks, who went in for ballads, big families and educating their children. Jean's grandmother was a prime mover in the Old Regular Baptist Church, and all the traditional hymn tunes came from her. Jean's Uncle Jason was a lawyer, who remembers the big ballads like "Lord Barnard". Jean's father taught school, printed a newspaper, fitted specs, farmed and sent ten of his fourteen children to college.[23]
Her "uncle" Jason (1860–1959), who was actually her father's cousin,[24] practiced law whilst owning a farm in Talcum, Knott County, Kentucky.[11] He was the source of several of Jean Ritchie's songs and Cecil Sharp narrowly missed meeting him in 1917, stating in his diary that "they couldn't get hold of him".[24]
As the youngest of 14 siblings,[1] Ritchie was one of ten girls who slept in one room of the farming family's farm house. Ritchie and her family sang for entertainment, but also to accompany their manual work. When the family gathered to sing songs, they chose from a repertoire of over 300 songs including hymns, old ballads, and popular songs by composers such as Stephen Foster, which were mostly learnt orally and sung unaccompanied.[6] The Ritchies would sing improvised harmonies to accompany some of their songs, including "Pretty Saro".[25]
Ritchie graduated from high school in Viper and enrolled in Cumberland Junior College (now a four-year University of the Cumberlands) in Williamsburg, Kentucky,[6] and from there graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in social work from the University of KentuckyinLexington in 1946.[1] At college she participated in the glee club and choir as well as learning the piano.[26] According to Ritchie, Maud Karpeles later said "[Ritchie] cannot be termed a folksinger, because she has been to college," which she took as a compliment.[27]
During World War II, she taught in an elementary school.[28] Meanwhile, in 1946, whilst still in Kentucky, Ritchie was recorded performing traditional songs with her sisters Edna, Kitty and Pauline by Emily Elizabeth Barnacle[29][24] and by Artus Moser.[30]
After graduating she got a job as a social worker at the Henry Street SettlementinNew York, where she taught her Appalachian songs and traditions to local children.[6] This caught the attention of folk singers, scholars, and enthusiasts based in New York, and she befriended Woody Guthrie, Oscar Brand, Pete Seeger, and Alan Lomax.[24] To many, Ritchie represented the ideal traditional musician, due to her rural upbringing, dulcimer playing, and the fact her songs came from within her family.[6]
In 1948, Ritchie shared a stage with The Weavers, Woody Guthrie, and Betty Sanders at the Spring Fever Hootenanny.[31] By October 1949, she was a regular guest on Oscar Brand's Folksong Festival radio show on WNYC.[24]
In 1949 and 1950, she recorded several hours of songs, stories, and oral history for Lomax in New York City.[32] All of Lomax's recordings of Ritchie are available online courtesy of the Lomax Digital Archive.[33] She was recorded extensively for the Library of Congress in 1951.
By 1951, Ritchie became a full-time singer, folksong collector, and songwriter.[24] Elektra records signed her and she released her first album of family songs, Singing the Traditional Songs of Her Kentucky Mountain Family (1952),[4] which included family versions of such songs as "Gypsum Davy", "The Cuckoo", and "The Little Devils", a song which had particularly fascinated Cecil Sharp when he heard it from Una and Sabrina Ritchie in 1917.[24]
In 1952, Ritchie was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to trace the links between American ballads and the songs from England, Scotland and Ireland.[34] As a song-collector, she began by setting down the 300 songs that she already knew from her mother's knee.[6] Then, Ritchie and her husband, George Pickow, spent 18 months tape recording, interviewing and photographing singers,[34] including Elizabeth Cronin,[4] Tommy and Sarah Makem,[24] Leo Rowsome,[24] and Seamus Ennis in Ireland;[34] Jeannie Robertson[4] and Jimmy MacBeath in Scotland; and Harry Cox and Bob Roberts in England.[24] When people asked what sort of songs they were looking for, Ritchie would sometimes ask them if they knew Barbara Allen and sing a few verses for them.[35] In 1954, Ritchie released some of the British and Irish recordings on the album Field Trip, side by side with Ritchie family versions of the same songs;[4] a broader selection was issued by Folkways on the two LPs Field Trip–England (1959) and As I Roved Out (Field Trip–Ireland) (1960).[24] Some transcriptions and photographs were later published in Ritchie's book From Fair to Fair: Folksongs of the British Isles (1966).[24]
Whilst in Britain, Ritchie sang at concerts for the English Folk Dance and Song Society, including its annual Royal Albert Hall festival, and presented several BBC radio programmes, appearing on "Ballad Hunter" which was presented by her friend Alan Lomax.[4][36] On one occasion, Maud Karpeles took Ritchie and Pickow to visit Ralph Vaughan Williams and his wife Ursula, for whom she sang "Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies"; Pickow photographed the four of them together.[37]
In 1955, Ritchie wrote a book about her family called Singing Family of the Cumberlands.[38] The book documented the role of the family songs in everyday life, such as accompanying everyday tasks on the farm and in the home, or being sung when gathered on the porch in the evening to “sing the moon up”. Singing Family of the Cumberlands is widely regarded as an American classic, and continues to be used in American schools.[4]
As well as work songs and ballads, Ritchie knew hymns from the "Old Regular Baptist" church[6] she attended in Jeff, Kentucky.[39] These were sung as "lining out" songs, in a lingering soulful way, including the song "Amazing Grace",[40] which she helped popularize.[4] Family versions of "Amazing Grace" and the hymn "Brightest And Best" were released on the 1959 album Jean Ritchie Interviews Her Family, With Documentary Recordings.[41]
Ritchie directed and sang at the first Newport Folk Festival in 1959,[4][24] and served on the first folklore panel for the National Endowment for the Arts.[24]
Her album Ballads from Her Appalachian Family Tradition (1961) compiled many traditional Ritchie family versions of Child Ballads, including False Sir John, Hangman, Lord Bateman, Barbary Allen, There Lived an Old Lord (Two Sisters), Cherry Tree Carol and Edward.[42]
Her traditional version of "My Dear Companion" (Roud 411) appeared on the album Trio recorded by Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, and Emmylou Harris.[43] Judy Collins recorded some of Ritchie's traditional songs, "Tender Ladies" and "Pretty Saro", and also used a photograph by George Pickow on the front of her album "Golden Apples of the Sun" (1962).
In 1963, Ritchie recorded an album with Doc Watson entitled Jean Ritchie and Doc Watson Live at Folk City (1963).[4] The traditional Appalachian song "Shady Grove" was popularized by Doc Watson after he most likely learnt it from Jean Ritchie, who in turn learnt it from her father Balis Ritchie.[44]
As folk music became more popular in the 1960s, new political songs overshadowed the traditional ballads. Whilst Ritchie largely stuck to the traditional songs, she wrote and recorded Kentucky-themed songs with wider implications, such as the destruction of the environment by loggers and the strip-mining techniques of coal firms.[45] These songs included "Blue Diamond Mines", "Black Waters" and "The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore", which was covered by Johnny Cash,[4] after he heard his wife, June Carter Cash, singing it.[46] Ritchie had written numerous songs about mining under the pseudonym "'Than Hall", to avoid troubling her non-political mother, and believing they might be better received if attributed to a man.[47]
Nottamun Town (which Ritchie had learned from her uncle Jason and performed in 1954 on Kentucky Mountains Songs and in 1965 on A Time For Singin) was covered by Shirley Collins (1964), Bert Jansch (1966) and Fairport Convention (1969),[48] and the tune was used by Bob Dylan for his 1963 song "Masters of War" on the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.[49]
From her uncle Jason (actually her father's first cousin),[24] Ritchie had learnt to alter tunes and lyrics from verse-to-verse and performance-to-performance, viewing elements of improvisation and variation as a natural part of traditional music. Her versions of family songs and original compositions vary slightly between performances, and she often created new songs by using bits of material from existing ones or adding newly composed verses to flesh out song fragments she recalled from her childhood.[6] Unfortunately, Cecil Sharp had failed to arrange a meeting with Jason Ritchie when he stayed in Knott County in 1917.<[24]
Her record None But One (1977), which won the 1977 critics’ award in Rolling Stone magazine, introduced her music to a younger audience,[4] and secured her place in mainstream folk music.[6]
Her 50th anniversary album was Mountain Born (1995), which features Peter and Jonathan, her two sons.[50]
Ritchie was the subject of the 1996 documentary Mountain Born: The Jean Ritchie Story, which was made for Kentucky Educational Television.[24]
Ritchie is credited with bringing national and international attention to the Appalachian dulcimer as the main initiator of the "dulcimer revival".[6] Distinct from the hammer dulcimer, the Appalachian dulcimer (or "mountain dulcimer") is an intimate indoor instrument with a soft, ethereal sound, probably first played by Appalachian Scotch-Irish immigrants in the early half of the nineteenth century.[51] The Ritchies strummed their dulcimers with a goose-feather quill.[4]
Her father Balis (1869–1958) had played the Appalachian dulcimer but forbade his children to touch it, but aged five or six, Ritchie defied this prohibition and covertly played the instrument. Then, by the time her dad decided to teach her how to play, she was already accustomed to the instrument so father labeled her as a "natural born musician".[6] By 1949, her dulcimer playing had become a hallmark of her style. After her husband George Pickow made her one as a present,[52] the couple decided there might be a potential market for them, and Morris Pickow, Pickow's uncle, set up an instrument workshop for them under the Williamsburg BridgeinBrooklyn.[24] At first they were shipped to New York in an unfinished state by Ritchie's Kentucky relative, Jethro Amburgey, back then the woodworking instructor at the Hindman Settlement School. George placed a finish and Jean tuned the dulcimers, and soon they had sold 300 dulcimers. Later they manufactured them themselves from start to finish.[24]
Ritchie's use of the dulcimer and her tutorial, The Dulcimer Book (1974), inspired folk revival musicians both in the US and Britain to record songs using the instrument.[4] Because fans kept asking her "Which album has the most dulcimer?", she finally recorded an album called The Most Dulcimer in 1984,[53] which included the dulcimer on every song.[54]
Ritchie was married to photographer George Pickow from 1950 until his death in 2010, with whom she had two sons, Peter (1954–) and Jonathan (1958–2020).[55] She lived in Port Washington, New York, and was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2008.[56]
In early December 2009, Ritchie was hospitalized after suffering a stroke which impaired her ability to communicate.[57] She recovered to some degree[58] then returned to her home in Berea, Kentucky.[6] A friend reported on her 90th birthday, "Jean has been living quietly in Berea for the last few years, in good spirits and well cared for by neighbors and family."[59] She died at home in Berea on June 1, 2015, aged 92.[60][61]
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
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