THE AMERICAN SONGBOOK

The Appalachian Journey episode of Alan Lomax' American Patchwork documentary series does have footage of various fiddlers, banjo players, a cappella singers, and bluegrass bands. The emphasis, however, is at least as much upon the environment from which Appalachian music sprang as the music itself. The footage of residents of the mountains includes both informal music and tale-telling, the latter of which can get too slow to hold the interest of viewers not possessed of a deep curiosity about American folklore. Tommy Jarrell is the only musician here with a wide reputation; one of the most interesting threads is a look at the evolution of the ballad "Tom Dooley," with a performance by Frank Profitt, Jr., son of a man who helped popularize the tune to folklorists such as Lomax. The adverse affects of strip mining, government policy, and tourism upon the region are discussed, and the modern manifestations of Appalachian folk music are examined in scenes of clogging competitions and smoking bluegrass groups. Although not always compelling, it's a worthwhile look at the kind of Appalachian music and culture that exists almost entirely separately from the record business.

The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as the 2,500-page book The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. The tunes of most of the ballads were collected and published by Bertrand Harris Bronson in and around the 1960s.

Many Child Ballads have subsequently appeared in contemporary music recordings. Burl Ives's 1949 album, The Return of the Wayfaring Stranger, for example, includes two: "Lord Randall" and "The Divil and the Farmer".

In 1956 four albums (consisting of eight LPs) of 72 Child Ballads sung by Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd were released: The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Vols. 1-4.[12]

In 1960 John Jacob Niles published The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles, in which he connects folk songs which he collected throughout the southern United States and Appalachia in the early 20th century to the Child Ballads. Many of the songs he published were revived in the Folk music revival, for example "The Riddle Song" ("I gave my love a Cherry"), which he connects with Child No. 1, "Riddles Wisely Expounded".

Joan Baez sang ten Child ballads distributed among her first five albums, the liner notes of which identified them as such.[13]

British electric folk groups such as Fairport Convention, Pentangle and Steeleye Span drew heavily on the Child Ballads in their repertoires, and many other recording artists have recorded individual ballads. Harry Smith included a number of them into his Anthology of American Folk Music.

Child ballads also occasionally occur in the work of musical groups not usually associated with folk material, such as Ween's recording of "The Unquiet Grave" (Child 78) under the title "Cold Blows the Wind" and versions of "Barbara Allen" (Child 84) recorded by the Everly Brothers, Art Garfunkel, and (on the soundtrack of the 2004 film A Love Song for Bobby Long) John Travolta. In 2009, Fleet Foxes included "The Fause Knight Upon the Road" as the b-side to the 7" release of "Mykonos" (as "False Knight on the Road"). In 2013 US singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer released Child Ballads comprising seven songs from the Francis James Child collection.