Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles

by John Jacob Niles

Paperback, 1981

Status

Available

Call number

784.71

Genres

Pop Culture

Music

Nonfiction

Collection

Shelf: Folklore

Publication

Dover Publications Inc. (1981), Edition: New edition, 369 pages

Description

A legend in the folk music community, John Jacob Niles enjoyed a lengthy career as a balladeer, folk collector, and songwriter. Ever close to his Kentucky roots, he spent much of his adulthood searching for the most well-loved songs of the southern Appalachia. The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles brings together a wealth of songs with the stories that inspired them, arranged by a gifted performer. This new edition includes all of the melodies, text, commentary, and illustrations of the 1961 original and features a new introduction by Ron Pen, director of the John Jacob Niles Center for America

User reviews

LibraryThing member magdalenk

A lovely work, following Child's ballads to the United states. It includes the music and for many of the ballads, along with piano accompaniment and guitar chord suggestions.

All the verses which Niles collected are included, and he compares the version collected with the Child ballads, and

sometimes includes the story of how the ballad was collected, which adds an interesting dimension.

This is a great book for anyone interested in oral history and music collecting, or American folk music.

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LibraryThing member waltzmn

John Jacob Niles was a noteworthy folk musician. That's the good news. The bad news is, he never realized that being a folk musician did not make him a genuine scholar. There is overwhelming evidence that some of the things in this book, rather than being songs Niles collected in tradition, are

fakes that he made up. Even the material that may be genuinely traditional is poorly researched. The results simply cannot be trusted. It is truly sad that Niles didn't release a John Jacob Niles songbook; had he owned to what he had done, the songs might have done quite well.

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