Appalachian Mountain Roots Archive

Clarence "Tom" Ashley's 1929 Johnson City Sessions recording of "The Coo Coo Bird" for banjo and voice. Its floating verses and modal banjo style exemplify how Anglo-Scottish balladry settled into Appalachian old-time music; it was rediscovered during the folk revival and became a widely covered standard.

Pearl R. Nye singing "Who Killed Cock Robin" and "I Won't Marry at All," recorded in 1937 by Alan Lomax and Elizabeth Lyttleton Sturz among Appalachian migrants in Akron, Ohio. The session documents how mountain repertoire persisted in industrial cities, and its marriage-refusing lyric links to later "I Will Never Marry" variants.

The Ritchie family ballad "Nottamun Town" from Viper, Perry County, Kentucky, recorded by Jean Ritchie for the Library of Congress (AFC 9999/005) in 1951. Its archaic, displaced imagery and modal mountain-dulcimer accompaniment were later borrowed for Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," tracing a path from oral tradition to modern protest song.

Fiddler Henry Reed of Glen Lyn, Virginia, performing the ballad "House Carpenter" (Child 243), recorded by Alan Jabbour for the Library of Congress AFC in November 1966 — a field document of the doomed-sea-voyage ballad surviving as Appalachian fiddle repertoire.

The widely sung dance and play-party tune "Old Joe Clark," played on fiddle by Henry Reed and recorded by Alan Jabbour in August 1966 — a repertoire item that crosses between song and instrumental dance music.

The Appalachian courting song "Shady Grove," with Henry Reed on fiddle and Karen Jabbour singing, recorded by Alan Jabbour in June 1966. Its Dorian-mode melody survives in both the song and instrumental branches of the tradition.

Henry Reed's October 1967 performance of "Johnny Comes Marching Home," an Irish-derived march melody that passed through the American Civil War and settled into Appalachian fiddle tradition. Recorded by Alan Jabbour for the AFC.

The most widely collected Anglophone ballad, "Barbara Allen" (Child 84), played on fiddle by Henry Reed and recorded by Alan Jabbour in October 1967 — evidence that narrative song lived on as instrumental music in Appalachia.

The native American murder ballad "Poor Ellen Smith," rooted in a North Carolina killing, in Henry Reed's fiddle version recorded by Alan Jabbour in October 1967 — an example of a topical murder ballad absorbed into Appalachian instrumental tradition.