When Jean Ritchie, who has died aged 92, emerged on to the embryonic New York folk scene in the 1940s, her repertoire of family songs from the Anglo-American tradition of the southern Appalachian mountains was seized upon by folksong enthusiasts as proof of the veracity of the old music. It was a tradition that had first been exposed to a wider audience by the English folksong collector Cecil Sharp in 1916-18: indeed, Sharp had noted songs from the Ritchie family in 1917. The quality of the music recorded by Sharp, and contained in the Ritchie family songs, contributed to the reassessment of the Appalachians, which had previously been seen as culturally backward.
One of Ritchie’s favourites was Fair Nottamun Town, first noted by Sharp from her sister and cousin in 1917. Ritchie’s version was recorded in Britain by Shirley Collins and then popularised by Bert Jansch and Fairport Convention, but it was Bob Dylan’s use of the tune for Masters of War that gave Ritchie the greatest exposure.
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