For March we honor Women’s History month as well as the St. Patrick’s Day holiday.  And in keeping with these two themes, I thought it would be fitting to offer up a brilliant piece of folklore field gathering organized and produced by a great woman artist in American history:  Jean Ritchie.  In the year 1960, this field gathering project yielded up a beautiful collection of live recordings issued on the Folkways label:  “As I Roved Out: Field Trip Ireland.”

In the early 1950s Jean learned of an opportunity to apply for a Fulbright scholarship.  She got a tip from a friend who knew of Jean’s deep bench of knowledge of the old ballads, and this friend suggested that Jean make an application to travel to Britain to find the origins of the songs she had learned as a child in Appalachia.

As early as the 1700s, Jean’s ancestors immigrated to the mountains from Scotland, and they carried with them many songs and ballads.  Not surprisingly, the songs taught to Jean as a child, collected and gathered throughout Eastern Kentucky, had their direct origins in England, Scotland and Ireland.

From Smithsonian-Folkways about “As I Roved Out”:

In 1952, Jean Ritchie—iconic folksinger and dulcimer player from Kentucky—received a Fulbright scholarship enabling her to travel to Great Britain and Ireland to trace the origin of her Kentucky versions of songs and compare them with British and Irish versions. During the course of her travels, Ri[t]chie and husband George Pickow, with the assistance of British and Irish folk song authorities, made field recordings of local performers. This collection presents 17 of those recordings and is a companion album to Field Trip – England.

Many types of Irish music are included, from slow, romantic ballads—in either English or Gaelic—to lively dance music featuring Uillean pipes, tin whistles, and fiddles. Ritchie’s liner notes provide background information and lyrics about each performance.   

As stated above, “As I Roved Out” contains seventeen tracks, several by Irish artists that became well-known throughout Britain and some in the United States as well:  Tommy Makem, Elizabeth Cronin and Seamus Ennis among others.  The songs “Barbara Allen,” “Little Pack of Tailors,” and “The Girl I Left Behind Me” are instantly recognizable by folklorists around the world.

As I Roved Out – Field Trip-Ireland

Barbara Allen – Sarah Makem

The Sound of the Drum – Seamus Ennis

The Little Pack of Tailors – Elizabeth Cronin

The Girl I Left Behind Me / The Rakes of Mallow – Ceilidh Band

At the Cobblestone Pub, DublinAnd on a personal note, I finally made it to Ireland myself last year, and was thrilled to join my voice with the warm and welcoming session at the historic Cobblestone Pub in Dublin.  I offered a tune to the hushed crowd and to my delight they asked for two more, including “Barbara Allen.”  It was a thrill to bring Jean Ritchie’s version of the tune that traveled so far, for so long, back to these shores where it came from, so long ago.

Here we are with owner Thomas Mulligan.

 

 

 

And as always, thanks for reading!

Love and Blessings,

Susie

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Award-winning recording artist, Broadway singer, journalist, educator and critically-acclaimed powerhouse vocalist, Susie Glaze has been called “one of the most beautiful voices in bluegrass and folk music today” by Roz Larman of KPFK’s Folk Scene.  LA Weekly voted her ensemble Best New Folk in their Best of LA Weekly for 2019, calling Susie “an incomparable vocalist.”  “A flat out superb vocalist… Glaze delivers warm, amber-toned vocals that explore the psychic depth of a lyric with deft acuity and technical perfection.”  As an educator, Susie has lectured at USC Thornton School of Music and Cal State Northridge on “Balladry to Bluegrass,” illuminating the historical path of ancient folk forms in the United Kingdom to the United States via immigration into the mountains of Appalachia.  Susie has taught workshops since 2018 at California music camps RiverTunes and Vocáli Voice Camp.  She is a current specialist in performance and historian on the work of American folk music icon, Jean Ritchie.  Susie now offers private voice coaching online via the Zoom platform.   www.susieglaze.com