An Evolving Tradition

The Child Ballads in Modern Folk and Rock Music

Dave Thompson

• Publisher: Backbeat
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN: 9781493068241
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Folk Music

The Child Ballads are a series of over 300 traditional ballads from England and Scotland that, along with their American variants, were anthologized by folklorist Francis James Child in the nineteenth century. An Evolving Tradition is the story of the Child Ballads—the world's best-known and most highly regarded repository of traditional English folk songs, and the wellspring for approximately 10,000 recordings over the last century, from obscure musicological archives to classic releases from Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, and Led Zeppelin.
Drawing on interviews with numerous scholars and musicians, author Dave Thompson explains what a ballad is, outlines their dominant themes, and recounts how these ballads survived to become a mainstay of field recordings made by Cecil Sharp, Alan Lomax, and others as they traveled the English and American countryside in search of old songs. Thompson traverses the entire spectrum of rock, pop, folk, roots, experimental music, industrial, and goth to reveal the remarkable legacy and incalculable influence of the Child Ballads on all manner of modern music.

Table of contents

• Author’s Notes
• Alternative Titles
• Introduction
• Chapter One: The Very First Record
• Chapter Two: Unto Brigg Fair
• Chapter Three: 2,000 Years BC (Before Child)
• Chapter Four: Banning the Ballads
• Chapter Five: A Garland of Balladries
• Chapter Six: The Ballad of Silas Wegg and the Tripe-Skewer
• Chapter Seven: The Voice of Some People
• Chapter Eight: Songs around Every Corner
• Chapter Nine: The Mermaid and the Astronomer
• Chapter Ten: The Original Southern Journey
• Chapter Eleven: Appalachian Aftershocks
• Chapter Twelve: Cabbage Head Blues
• Chapter Thirteen: Song of the Tanner
• Chapter Fourteen: Hunters and Gatherers
• Chapter Fifteen: Seeking Fresh Directions
• Chapter Sixteen: Britten, Ives, and Niles
• Chapter Seventeen: A Nova Scotian Songbook
• Chapter Eighteen: A Canadian Caché
• Chapter Nineteen: The Lomax Connection
• Chapter Twenty: Broadcasting the Ballads
• Chapter Twenty-One: The Girl from Viper County
• Chapter Twenty-Two: The Birth of the Boom
• Chapter Twenty-Three: The Curious Tale of Robin Hood
• Chapter Twenty-Four: Down by the Riverside
• Chapter Twenty-Five: MacColl’s Long Harvest
• Chapter Twenty-Six: Judy and Joan
• Chapter Twenty-Seven: Child Goes to Newport
• Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Clancys Lead the Way
• Chapter Twenty-Nine: Enter . . . and Exit . . . Bob Dylan
• Chapter Thirty: Shirley Shining
• Chapter Thirty-One: Talking the Tunes
• Chapter Thirty-Two: The Critics Group
• Chapter Thirty-Three: Nightclubbing
• Chapter Thirty-Four: The Ballad of Paul and Martin
• Chapter Thirty-Five: Another Child of Skiffle
• Chapter Thirty-Six: Plucking the Pentangle
• Chapter Thirty-Seven: Any Fairport in a Storm
• Chapter Thirty-Eight: Leader of the Pack
• Chapter Thirty-Nine: Keeping Up with the Joneses
• Chapter Forty: Pity Poor Steeleye Span
• Chapter Forty-One: Don’t Pity Poor Steeleye Span
• Chapter Forty-Two: Silly Wizards and the Spriguns of Tolgus
• Chapter Forty-Three: The Electric Muse
• Chapter Forty-Four: Old Roots, Newer Routes
• Chapter Forty-Five: Murderous Ballads
• Chapter Forty-Six: Of Owls and Hares
• Chapter Forty-Seven: And Other Stories
• Chapter Forty-Eight: Be Glad, for the Ballads Have no Ending
• Appendix
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgments