Jean Ritchie, the folk singer, songwriter and Appalachian dulcimer player, is 92 years old today. Abigail and Balis Ritchie of Viper, Kentucky had 14 children, and Jean was the youngest. Ten girls slept in one room of the farming familys house in the Cumberland Mountains. Jean Ritchie quickly memorized songs and performed at local dances and the county fairs with Chalmers and Velma NcDaniels (who grew up with her in Viper), where they repeatedly won blue ribbons Hazard. In the late 1940s, the family acquired a radio and discovered that what they were singing was hillbilly music, a word they had never heard before. In the mid-thirties, Alan Lomax recorded in Kentucky for the Library of Congresss Archive of Folk Song. Among the people he recorded were The Singing Ritchies. Ritchie attended Cumberland College (Now the University of the Cumberlands) in Williamsburg, Kentucky and later the University of Kentucky in Lexington. At college, she joined the glee club and choir and learned to play piano. In 1946, she graduated with a BA in social work. During the war, she taught in elementary school. In the summer of 1946, she moved to work in the Henry Street Settlement in New York. There she met Oscar Brand, Lead Belly and Pete Seeger and started singing her family songs again. In 1948, she shared the stage with The Weavers, Woody Guthrie and Betty Sanders at the Spring Fever Hootenanny. Oscar Brands Folksong Festival on WNYC radio adopted her as a regular by October, 1949. Ritchie became known as The Mother of Folk.As well as work songs and ballads, Ritchie knew hymns from the Old Regular Baptist church she attended in Jeff, Kentucky. These were sung as lining out songs, in a lingering soulful way. One of the songs they sang was Amazing Grace.” She wrote some songs, including one on the effects of strip mining in Kentucky. (Some of Ritchies late 1950s/early 1960s songs on mining she published under the pseudonym Than Hall to avoid troubling her non-political mother, and believing they might be better received if attributed to a man.) My Dear Companion appeared on the album Trio recorded by Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris. Judy Collins recorded some of Ritchies traditional songs, including Tender Ladies and Pretty Saro. In 2002, Ritchie received a National Endowment For The Arts National Heritage Fellowship, the Nations highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. In early December 2009, Ritchie was hospitalized after suffering a stroke which impaired her ability to communicate. At first, she was expected to require institutional care. However, on June 8, 2010, her son reported: Great news! Mom is coming home tomorrow. She has surpassed all expectations and is talking, laughing and in general being herself. For many years, Ritchie lived in Port Washington, New York. She currently lives in Berea, Kentucky. Here, Ritchie performs “The West Virginia Mining Disaster.”
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 10:30:56 +0000
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