Singing the Traditional Songs of Her Kentucky Mountain Family cover

Singing the Traditional Songs of Her Kentucky Mountain Family

Jean Ritchie

Album · 1952 · Elektra EKLP-2

Singing the Traditional Songs of Her Kentucky Mountain Family is Jean Ritchie’s first album, issued by Elektra in 1952 as a 10-inch LP (EKLP-2). Jac Holzman produced it, Edward Tatnall Canby wrote the liner notes, and her husband George Pickow designed the cover. Ritchie, who came from Viper in Perry County, Kentucky, sings the sixteen tracks either unaccompanied or with her dulcimer.

The program includes ballads and songs such as “The Little Devils,” “Gypsum Davy,” “The Cuckoo” and “One Morning in May,” the last two each in two versions, along with “Black Is the Colour,” “Hush Little Baby” and “Jubilee.” “Jubilee,” also known as “Swing and Turn,” is a singing game of the Ritchie family and their community. Canby describes it in the notes as a dance tune sung by the dancers themselves without instruments, a reel with lines of dancers facing each other. Ritchie later said she never copyrighted it because it had been collected from another source in the community; Marian Skein wrote it down at Ary, Kentucky, and it was published in 1939.

Tracklist

  1. 1 O Love Is Teasin' 1:48
  2. 2 Jubilee alt version 2:11
  3. 3 Black Is the Color 2:17
  4. 4 A Short Life of Trouble 1:00
  5. 5 One Morning in May (aka the Nightingale) 1:57
  6. 6 One Morning in May - Another Version 1:35
  7. 7 Old Virginny 2:35
  8. 8 Skin and Bones 1:07
  9. 9 The Little Devils 1:44
  10. 10 My Boy Willie - Version 2 1:25
  11. 11 Hush Little Baby 1:01
  12. 12 Gypsum Davy 1:57
  13. 13 The Cuckoo alt version 2:49
  14. 14 The Cuckoo - Another Version 1:49
  15. 15 Little Cory 1:36
  16. 16 Keep Your Garden Clean 1:24

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