Jean Ritchie's Kentucky Mother Goose: Songs and Stories from My Childhood

no issues exactly what i expected

I love it. Some of the songs from my grand and great grand mothers I had lost. They are right here in this lovely book.

A great collection of Jean Ritchie's songs and recollections about the songs. The CD that accompanies the book is so interesting hearing her tell her memories about the songs as well as her singing them.

This seller sent a beautiful book! Thank You!

So well done Dr. Brumfield! This is an absolutely beautiful book. You have done a great job of making one of my home state's most iconic musicians, Jean Ritchie into a national hero.

A brilliantly conceived book for music teachers

Great music. Historically significant

Kentucky-born folksinger/social worker Jean Ritchie is an National Treasure as both a singer, teacher, social worker and music historian of Appalachian, and music of the British Isles. She was the youngest of 14 children growing up in Kentucky and absorbed all the traditional folk songs that she heard every night at family sings. She moved to New York after college and worked at the Henry Street Settlement, which put here in Greenwich Village at the highlight of the “folk revival” of the early 1960s. So she shared her songs with others and did a little performing herself. She recorded albums for Jac Holzman’s Elektra records and appeared at the Newport Festival. (I had the opportunity to see Jean many times at the Philadelphia Folk Festival – the last one she attended was 2008 and I’ve attached I photo I captured there to this review. She also attracted the attention of Library of Congress sound archivist Alan Lomax and he recorded many of her family songs in 1949.Before she died in June (2015) at age 92, she had already finished writing this book of songs and stories from her childhood, with the help – and friendship of Texas music educator Susan Brumfield. She saw the galleys but did not live to see the final product. I’m sure she would have highly approved because this is gorgeously produced 128-page volume – profusely illustrated with Richie’s family photos and the real bonus of the 66-minute CD that is inserted in the back and contains 50 audio recordings of Jean singing – and often discussing – most of the children’s “play songs” whose lyrics (and musical notation) fill the book. A few of the sound clips come from her commercial Lps, but the rest are split between ones that Lomax recorded in the 1940s and 50 and new recording made by Brumfield between 2005 and 2007.With more-than-reasonable list price of just $19.99 you can think of this package as either a “new” Jean Ritchie CD in a super-deluxe hardbound case or a music book with great graphic design (including a few previously-unpublished Maurice Sendak drawings) and “soundtrack” to go with it.This is a must-own for anyone interested in traditional folk music, especially what was called mountain music”I hope you found this review both informative and helpful.Steve Ramm“Anything Phonographic”