A few months ago, PBS (public broadcasting in the US) aired a documentary made by Kentucky Educational TV called "Moutain Born - The Jean Ritchie Story". (There is info about it at the PBS websit.) In it she describes not only the way she brought her Kentucky folk songs (hundreds that her family would sing) to her work in New York, but how she and her husband went to Ireland and Britain when she did research with a Fulbright award. In one town she went to a home of Mrs. Makem, who went around to the neighbors and arranged a gathering to sing at their house. With Jean's tape recorder and her husbands photographs, she gathered the songs and pictures of the people. Mrs. Makem's teenage son, Tommy, played the pennywhistle, but knew only one song to sing. The documentary then shows the present day Tommy Makem saying, this lady from Kentucky came knowing all the old songs of her people, so I decided that my people's old songs may be "important" enough to learn and collect, if she was collecting them, too. The film also how Jean Ritchie brought popularity to the song Amazing Grace, which she sang a cappella at the Jazz Festival. People were stunned. After that, eveyone started recording it and taking more notice of folk music.

" 1922 Jean Ritchie born in Viper, KY

1946 graduated from University of Kentucky, moved to New York City

1948 first formal concert: Little Greenwich Mews Theatre

1950 married George Pickow

1952 first solo recording: Jean Ritchie Sings Traditional Songs of Her Kentucky Mountain Family

1952 Fulbright award to study folk music in the British Isles

1955 first publication of Singing Family of the Cumberlands

1977 album None But One wins Rolling Stone Critic's Award

1996 latest recording: Mountain Born"
"Ritchie was born in 1922 in Viper, Kentucky, into a family that considered music extremely important. In addition to singing as a means of entertainment, they had songs to accompany nearly all of their activities, from sweeping to churning to working in the fields. When they got together in the evening to sing as a family, they chose from a repertoire of more than 300 songs. Among them were hymns, traditional love songs and ballads, and popular songs by composers like Stephen Foster. For the most part, these songs were learned orally and sung without accompaniment.

While much of the music that was to become central to Ritchie's later performance repertoire originated at home, other influences on her musical development cannot be overlooked. Besides the songs of family and friends, she was exposed to the music of the Old Regular Baptist church meetings the family attended regularly and to popular culture, particularly radio and recording. It is interesting to note that the one thing absent from Ritchie's musical background is formal training.

After graduating from high school in Viper, Ritchie attended Cumberland Junior College in Williamsburg, Kentucky. From there she went to the University of Kentucky, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1946. With a bachelor's degree in social work in hand, she moved to New York City to work at the Henry Street Settlement. There she drew on her knowledge of family songs to entertain the children in her charge.

Gradually, Ritchie's reputation as a folk singer grew, and she was asked to perform more formally. (Many of these concert experiences are discussed in the video.) For folk music fans of the 1940s, Ritchie represented the ideal traditional performer: She grew up in the mountains of Kentucky, sang songs that she learned from her family, and played a little-known instrument called a dulcimer."

she has a webpage at http://members.aol.com/greenhays/pages6.htm

It would be fun to have her join our discussions. I've invited her.
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