Musicians
- Jean Ritchie — Lead Vocals
“Jubilee”, also sung as “Swing and Turn, Jubilee,” is an Appalachian play-party song, catalogued as Roud 7403. Its author is unknown, and its earliest known printing is in Skean’s Circle Left: Folk Play of the Kentucky Mountains (1939). The sleeve notes to Jean Ritchie’s 1952 Elektra album describe it as a singing game: a dance tune sung by the dancers for their own accompaniment, without instruments, in a community where dancing was thought sinful for adults but singing games were thought proper. The dancers stand in facing lines, couples reel down the length of them with elbow swings, and the lines join in a circle for the chorus.
Jean Ritchie, born in Viper, Perry County, Kentucky, recorded it for Singing the Traditional Songs of Her Kentucky Mountain Family (Elektra, 1952) and again with Doc Watson in 1963 on Jean Ritchie and Doc Watson Live at Folk City. It is a gamesong of her family and their Appalachian community, and it is printed in her book Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians.
The verses are the loose, interchangeable stock of a play-party rather than a narrative: the hardest work the singer ever did on a farm set against the easiest work, swinging in a true love’s arms; a needle and thread fine enough to sew a sweetheart to the singer’s side; peaches in summer and apples in the fall; the old gray mare; coffee growing on a white oak tree and sugar running in brandy. Singers add and drop verses, so versions differ in length. Rory and Alex McEwen with Isla Cameron recorded it on Folksong Jubilee in 1958, and Iona Fyfe sang it as “Swing and Turn” on her 2019 EP Dark Turn of Mind, learned from Jean Ritchie’s singing. Lindsay Lou recorded it for Bluegrass Women (2026), a ten-song album of songs written by women, on which “Jubilee” is the one collected by Jean Ritchie.
Assisted by AI.
Spot something off? Help us fix it.
