Along with the death of the great Scottish singer Jean Redpath and the recent death of our beloved singer and activist, Ronnie Gilbert, both at 88 years old, comes the news that Jean Ritchie died last week at age 92. I grew up listening to Jean Ritchie. She brought rich American oral traditional music to our pop-oriented ears. I learned Shady Grove, Wondrous Love, All the Pretty Little Horses, Nottamun Town, Barbry Allen and many, many more from her records & books.
Oakland was fortunate a number of years ago to have her come and work with our Cal Revels doing an Appalachian Christmas/Solstice presentation with lots of quilts in the set and plenty of Jean Ritchie songs and Appalachian pageantry.
Jean was the youngest of 14 children born in rural Kentucky. She was a Fullbright scholar and was instrumental in starting the first Newport Folk Festival. She published “Singing Family of the Cumberlands” about her childhood and the music that surrounded her in her youth. She produced a recording of the music in that book. All of us who sing traditional music owe a great debt to Jean and everyone who sings folk music has sung the songs she gave us. In her later years she wrote many of her own songs. Next year in Sing Thing’s 41st year we will honor the great traditional folk singers and collectors who have passed on by including their songs. We must know where we have been in order to get to where we are going.