Compiled by Fiona Potts
Without Jean Ritchie, the “Mother of Folk,” there would have been no dulcimer revival. If there had been no dulcimer revival, there would have been no Dulcimer Players News. It only seems fitting, then, for the first commemorative issue to start with her, as she first appeared in the magazine.
In 1975 she published “Dulcimer People,” as Phil Mason related in “This Months Feedback,” Vol. 1 No. 2:
In another letter, received just before press time from Jean Ritchie, she informs us that she will have a new book out around the end of February. The title is “The Dulcimer People,” and it will be published by Oak Publications – the same folks who put out her “The Dulcimer Book,” which is, of course, probably the best known and most popular dulcimer book ever written.
We can’t let the opportunity go without extending our sincere thanks to Jean Ritchie for having been, and continuing to be, such a great influence in bringing the dulcimer to the attention of many thousands of persons who would otherwise have never known of this great instrument, or of the wonderful music she plays, which has long been a tradition in her family.
In Vol. 1 No. 5 he added,
I’m running out of space and have more to say but guess I won’t be too windy. However, I did want to say that anyone who has not yet seen Jean Ritchie’s new book “Dulcimer People” should get it. It’s really the best I’ve seen in a long time.
She was featured on the cover of DPN Vol. 3 No. 3, from which this issue’s cover has been adapted. It is hard to summarize her life any better than it was in 1978, so I use the abridged “Cover Story” here:
Our Cover for this issue features Jean Ritchie, a wonderful dulcimer player and person who is known to all dulcimer players as almost solely responsible for bringing the dulcimer back into the mainstream of American folk music and making it the popular instrument that it is today all over the world.
Jean Ritchie was born and raised in Viper, Kentucky in the heart of the Southern Appalachian Mountains, and was the youngest of fourteen children born to Balis and Abigail Ritchie. …
When Jean was growing up, it wasn’t the new “hillbilly” music or the catchy tin-pan alley songs that were the favorites. It was, “Barbry Ellen,” “Over the River to Charlie,” “Sourwood Mountain,” or “Lord Randal.” People made up songs, too, news accounts of local events – hangings, elections, ground-hog hunts, elopements, feuds – all meaningful, each one a living part of the growth of the region.
Jean was graduated from Viper High School, from Cumberland Junior College and from the University of Kentucky with highest honors and a Phi Beta Kappa Key, taking her bachelors degree in social work. Her first job in this field was with the Henry Street Settlement in New York City, where, with her mountain dulcimer which she had learned to play from her father, she taught her family songs and games to the children. Friends and Settlement visitors soon began inviting her to sing at parties and school classes, and Alan Lomax recorded her singing for the Library of Congress Folksong Archives, and introduced her at Oxford Press.
Her first book, “Singing Family of the Cumberlands,” reviewed as an American classic, was published in 1955. Many books have followed, and concert appearances, television, recording contracts and radio broadcasts have been natural outgrowths of her interest in her family music, and have taken her to many countries around the world.
Look, Listen, Read
Jean Ritchie donated her first dulcimer, made by Jethro Amburgey, to the Kentucky Historical Society in 2002. View it online at bit.ly/jeankyhs.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds the “Anniversary” dulcimer George Pickow made for Jean, his wife, in 1952. View it online at bit.ly/pickowmma.
Listen to Alan Lomax’s field recordings of Jean Ritchie at the Lomax Digital Archive, online at bit.ly/ldaritchie. These include “Weevily Wheat,” another name for “Over the River to Feed My Sheep,” recorded on May 5, 1949.
Jean Ritchie books every mountain dulcimer player should own include “Singing Family of the Cumberlands” (1955), “The Dulcimer Book” (1963), “Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians” (1965), and “Jean Ritchie’s Dulcimer People” (1975).
Hardly a volume of DPN goes by without a mention of Jean Ritchie, and certainly not an issue without someone who can trace their dulcimer roots back to her. There are several wonderful stories in the DPN Archives covering her life and contributions to folk music, but the one that I felt most epitomized Jean Ritchie and her dulcimer playing style was “Over the River to Feed My Sheep: A Lesson for Intermediate Mountain Dulcimer” by Aubrey Atwater, which appeared almost 20 years ago in Vol. 20 No. 3 (Summer 2004). She wrote,
I have heard Jean sing “Over the River to Feed My Sheep” many times, either by herself or with friends and relatives. It is an excellent example of a song played in the old style on the dulcimer – in a lesser-used Dorian tuning, played with the noter. Jean, like many older Appalachian mountain players, doesn’t use an electronic tuner but goes for string tension and desired pitch for the voice. She plays in a three-string configuration, fretting the double melody strings with the noter and letting the other two strings drone.
Tune the bass string of your dulcimer to D below middle C or a desired pitch. Match the bass string at the fourth fret to the middle string (A note). Then match the bass string at 3rd fret to the melody strings (G note). You will notice that the melody strings are pitched lower than the middle string. This is one of the aspects of this tuning that I like most. …
One of the many musical gifts I’ve received from Jean Ritchie is what I consider one of her wonderful signature sounds: using the dulcimer as a harmony voice. When she was a little girl, the timbre of the instrument so matched her own voice that she quickly learned to play a harmony part on the dulcimer to strengthen the sonic texture of the song. The harmony I’ve created is written below the tab. It’s an idea that I came up with one morning and I invite you to alter it as you like. Enjoy playing the counter melody against your own voice or playing the two parts as a duet with another instrument. …
I hope “Over the River to Feed My Sheep” gives you the powerful sense of connection to the distant past that I so love about traditional folk music.
Lyrics:
1. Charlie’s neat and Charlie’s sweet,
And Charlie he’s a dandy,
And Charlie he’s the very lad
That stole my stripéd candy.
Chorus: Over the river to feed my sheep.
Over the river, Charlie.
Over the river to feed my sheep,
And to measure up my barley.
2. My pretty little pink, I once did think,
I never could do without you,
But now I’ve lost all hopes of you,
I care very little about you. Chorus.
3. Don’t want your wheat,
don’t want your cheat,
Neither do I want your barley,
But I’ll take a little of the best you’ve got,
To bake a cake for Charlie. Chorus.
Aubrey Atwater is currently based in Warren, Rhode Island. Find her online at atwater-donnelly.com.
In the Archives
“An Interview with Jean Ritchie” by Henry Rasof (Vol. 9 No. 3)
“A Conversation with Jean Ritchie” by Jean Metcalfe (Vol. 22 No. 1)
“A Special Concert with Jean Ritchie” by Karl Seebree (Vol. 28 No. 1)
“Tales and Traditions: The Tale of Jean Ritchie Dulcimer #228” by Ralph Lee Smith (Vol. 25 No. 1)
“Remembering Jean Ritchie” compilation (Vol. 41 No. 3)
“100 Years: Remembering Jean Ritchie and how we met the mountain dulcimer” by Aubrey Atwater (Vol. 49 No. 1)
