Jean Ritchie
Biography
Jean Ritchie was born into a large and musical family in Viper, Kentucky in 1922. The Ritchie family was very much a part of the Appalachian folk tradition, and had committed over 300 songs (including hymns, traditional love songs, ballads, children's game songs, etc.) to its collective memory, a tradition that Ritchie has drawn on (as well as preserved and maintained) for the entire length of her performing career. She grew up in a home where singing was intertwined with nearly every task, and the beautiful, ephemeral nature of these mountain songs and fragments was not lost on her. After graduating from high school, Ritchie attended Cumberland Junior College in Williamsburg, Ky., moving on to the University of Kentucky, where she graduated in 1946. She accepted a position at the Henry Street Settlement in New York City and soon found her family's songs useful in reaching out to the children in her care. Her singing, although she never had a strong pop sort of voice, was perfect for the old ballads, especially when she accompanied herself on lap dulcimer, and the ancient modal melodies of her family felt fresh and airy in her hands. Ritchie soon found herself in demand in the New York coffeehouses, and her official career in music began.
Selected Discography
She had a small role in Mattewan, a powerful true story,direct e d by John Sayles. My wife grew up in the same part of Kentucky as Jean Ritchie. Jean Ritchie grew up in Viper,my wife in Red Bird, near Big Creek, a very remote area of Appalachia, where the hills and mountains are steep and the hollers so narrow the hound dogs have to wag their tails up and down.
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I close my eyes, i see an old montain home and she is on the front porch, singing....
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