AMERICAN MOUNTAIN SONGS compact disc released in 2014 - Songs collected by Ethel Park Richardson in 1926-1927, sung by one of her grandsons, Jonathan Guyot Smith
Ethel Park Richardson and Polar
Ethel Park Richardson collected the songs sung in the Appalachian mountains during her journeys into the highlands in the late 1920s, and later caused the same songs to be performed by a variety of singers - first at folk festivals in and around Chattanooga, Tennessee, then on radio station WDOD, and later on network radio broadcasts from New York City. She had a definite view regarding the manner in which these songs should be performed. How they were sung - in terms of melody, lyrics, and sincerity of presentation - meant more to Ethel than the style of the performance or the stylistic characteristics of the entertainers.
Jonathan Guyot Smith, youngest grandchild of Ethel Park (Smith) Richardson, heard his grandmother sing these songs when he was a child. The two shared an intense interest in the entertainment field, and he often did lecture/performances built around the mountain songs and stories he learned from his grandmother. This new album release features folk songs long ago gathered by Ethel Park Richardson and sung by her grandson in an extremely simple, straightforward manner - with no attempt at style, musical artistry, or adherence to any identifiable past or present performance genre. The accompaniments are basic and subtle, the focus remaining on the stories told in the quaint lyrics.
Songs included in this new album are:
1. ON TOP OF OLD SMOKY
2. IF YOU'RE EVER A-GOIN' TO LOVE ME
3. BLUE-EYED ELLEN
4. BARBARA ALLEN
5. THE RIDDLE SONG
6. THE WEEPING WILLOW
7. DEEP BLUE SEA
8. CHARMIN' BILLY
9. SOURWOOD MOUNTAIN
10. GROUND HOG
11. SINFUL TO FLIRT
12. JIMMY RANDALL
13. THE TWO SISTERS
14. A RICH IRISH LADY
15. THE MARY GOLDEN TREE
16. THE FOOLISH BOY
The album is obtainable through Amazon, CD Baby, and a variety of on-line outlets, and includes a booklet with extensive notes and photographs. All songs are sung just as Ethel Park Richardson heard them, sang them, and wished to have them perpetuated. They are the songs long loved by the people of the Southern Appalachians - some with origins in England and Scotland, and others created or cherished by our American mountaineers. They are here sung in the simplest manner, in tribute to the folk who kept them current and to the collector who gathered them in her book, American Mountain Songs.
