An Introduction to America’s Music

220 PART 2 | FROM THE CIVIL WAR THROUGH WORLD WAR I

Listen & Refl ect

1. Describe the qualities of Jean Ritchie’s voice, which has been called a representative
   example of the “southern white mountain style” of singing. Does her vocal style suit the
   song she sings?


2. How does it support or detract from the story her song tells?

CD 1.29 Listening Guide 9.2 “The Gypsy Laddie” ANONYMOUS

timing section text

2:12 stanza 9 Oh soon this lady changed her mind

Her clothes grew old and faded

Her hose and shoes come off her feet

And left them bare and naked

2:29 stanza 10 Just what befell this lady now

I think it worth relating

Her gypsy found another lass

And left her heart a-breaking

note Recorded in 1961.

AMERICAN FOLK SONGS AND

THEIR COLLECTORS

Even before Cecil Sharp ever set foot in America, Massachusetts-born scholar

Phillips Barry had developed a more inclusive philosophy of ballad collecting. His

work showed that whatever its origin, a song went through a process of commu-

nal re-creation when it entered oral tradition. In other words, even a relatively

recent song by a known composer could be considered a folk song if it underwent

changes as it passed from singer to singer. By working to document that pro-

cess, Barry refocused the issue of repertory. He and other collectors—sometimes

called song catchers by their informants—took the singers’ own preferences as

their starting place, thus recovering from oral tradition not only old ballads of

English origin but also newer ballads composed in America. For song catchers

like Barry, the folk process in America was alive and well and still creating songs.

FOLK SONGS OF THE AMERICAN WEST

The new songs of American origin often told stories that tied them to events

in the nation’s development. That was particularly true of songs that grew out

of the westward expansion of the nineteenth century, when some 10 million

Americans headed west.

“Sweet Betsey from Pike,” one offbeat response to this epic migration, was

fi rst published by John A. Stone in 1858 in a San Francisco songster (a collection

song catchers

172028_09_205-230_r3_ko.indd 220 23/01/13 11:29 AM