Biographies of Informants & some Collectors Q-R-S
Biographies of Informants, Performers and some Collectors (Traditional Ballads and Folk Songs)
North America (Arranged in Alphabetical order by last name)
[This section is for biographies of the important informants of Anglo-Saxon ballads and folk songs and is not all inclusive. Every collector had their best informants. Some informants by their reputations were visited by many collectors, and recordings were made in some instances. Some informants were recording artists in the 1920s and their songs were collected indirectly by the record companies.
The focus of this study is North America. At some point The British Isles will be included on a separate page.
There is little known about some collectors, for example, Fred High (MO-AR), John Stone (VA, under the auspices of the Virginia Folklore Society), Winston Wilkinson (VA, under the auspices of the Virginia Folklore Society).
R. Matteson 2015]
Informants, Performers and Some Collectors- North America
CONTENTS (longer bios are found attached to this page on the left-hand column):
Ramsey, Obray (NC) Recordings. Traditional singer and banjo player Obray Arlin Ramsey, (born 24 Sep 1913 - Madison County, North Carolina, and died 07 Aug 1997 in Asheville, Buncombe County) was a traditional singer and banjo player. His parents were Andrew Jackson Ramsey (Birth 11 Aug 1887 in Revere, Madison, North Carolina. Death 27 Mar 1959 in Morganton, Burke, North Carolina) and Roxy Cona Wallin (Birth 01 May 1888 in Revere, Madison, North Carolina. Death 26 Aug 1962 in Revere, Madison, North Carolina). Obray was married to Tressalee Barnett Ramsey.
Rawn, Isabel (NC-GA) (later Mrs. W. T. Perry) collector; Brown Collection (Isabel Rawn of Cherokee County); Friend of the Campbell family, gave ballads to Olive Dame Campbell (while she was in school in Georgia), published without credit in Sharp EFSSA, 1917, 1932. Isabel Nauman Rawn was born in Fort Elliot, TX on Oct. 30, 1885 and died in Asheville, NC on Aug. 19, 1936. Her father was Maj. Charles C. Rawn and mother, Isabel Douglas Nawman. She married Thomas Lockwood Perry, son Thomas Lockwood Perry (Jr.) (1916-1991), daughter Priscilla Perry Forte, d. 2012.
"Miss Isabel Rawn, of the Mount Berry School, Mount Berry, Ga., writes that she has collected nine ballads in Georgia"
Isabel Rawn, fresh from Wellesley, was full of enthusiasm over the idea of finding really old ballads still being sung.
Richards, Belle (NH) (Belle from Isabel) informant for Flanders, 1940s. Mrs. Belle Richards of Colebrook, New Hampshire was born Alice Isobel Luther in 1881. She learned ballads from her father Allan Luther, of Pittsburg, New Hampshire, who was born in Canada. Her mother was Ellen Hawes. Belle married Frank Richards (b. 1868).
Riddle, Almeda (AR) informant, recordings Max Hunter/Wolf Folklore others (Lomax). Almeda Riddle was born November 21, 1898, near Greer's Ferry, Arkansas and lived her entire life in that area (died, June 30, 1986). Almeda Fraye James (Riddle) was born November 21, 1898 in Cleburne, Arkansas. Her father Jonas L. James married Martha F Wilkerson December 6, 1891. Almeda was married October 3, 1917 to Hester Price Riddle. She died in June 1986 - Heber Springs, Cleburne, Arkansas.
Ritchie Family (KY) includes May, Ina, Jean-- father was Balis Ritchie
Ritchie, Jason (KY) folk enthusiast lawyer; mentioned in McGill 1917; Jean Ritchie's uncle; Balis brother
Ritchie, Jean (KY) informant, author, recordings. (Bio- Wiki) Jean Ritchie was born December 8, 1922 and died June 1, 2015, was an American folk music singer, writer, and Appalachian dulcimer player.
Rosenbaum, Art ( ) collector, artist
Sandburg, Carl
Sands, Mary (NC) Madison County singer Sharp EFSSA
Scarborough, Dorothy
Seeger, Mike (VA-DC) performer, collector, recordings
Shearin, Hubert Gibson; writer, collector British Ballads in the Cumberland Mountains
Shelton Family (NC) informants for Sharp EFSSA; Karpeles 1949
Shifflet, Raz (VA) informant from Brown's Cove, Albemarle County
Shiffett, Robert (VA)
Smith, C. Alphonso (VA) 1864- 1924 founder of Virginia Folk-Lore Society 1913; author; collector.
Smith, Hobart (VA) informant, brother of Texas Gladden; recordings
Smith, Thomas P. (NC-VA) Collector, informant from c. 1914 for Brown Collection (1952), then Davis (1960)
Sonkin, Robert (NY)
Stamper Family (also Marthy - Sharp EFFSA) Hiram, Art, Charlie
Steele, Pete (KY-OH) banjo
Stilley, John (AR) Thesis pub;. McNeil 1992 Mid-America Folklore
Stockton, Jeff (TN) Flag pond informant Sharp EFSSA see Yates
Stone, John (VA) collector for Davis (1929).
Stoneman, Ernest (VA) performer, informant
Sturgis, Edith (VT) Songs from the Hills of Vermont, 1919.
Sturgis (KY) informant singer
Sullivan, Ellen M. (VT) Flanders
Sutton, Maude, Minish Collector, Brown Collection c. 1920.
Sutterfield, Berry (AR) Wolf Collection
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Folksingers and the Re-Creation of Folksong Author(s): John Quincy Wolf Source: Western Folklore,Vol. 26, No. 2 (Apr., 1967), pp. 101-111
Almeda Riddle, of the Miller community in Cleburne County, Arkansas, who, like Jimmie Driftwood and Ollie Gilbert, now makes wax recordings and sings at leading folk festivals all over the country, is by training and temperament a creative artist who intentionally and unintentionally re- vises her songs as a part of the art of singing. Her father was a singing school teacher and her mother a folksinger. The first time I saw her, in 1952, she made up a list of a hundred folksongs which she said she would sing for me and added that she would give me a second list of a hundred as soon as I had taped the first hundred. She does not know how many songs are in her repertoire and is occasionally reminded of additional ones which she has not thought of in several years. She has never completed the inventory of her songs, but the number runs over two hundred. When at our first meeting I asked her how she kept so many songs in mind, she said that she always sang to her cow as she was milking and constantly varied her numbers. "All my life," she says, "I've sung for myself, my children, and grandchil- dren. I sing to please myself and use my judgment on what and how I sing." (Her style of singing is in the quaintest rural manner.) I'll change any part of a song that doesn's make good sense-though I deeply respect the very old ones-and if a word doesn't make sense I'll put in a better one. Alan Lomax says that I edit my songs, but I don't do that, that is, not unless the song is in bad shape. I never change anything just to be changing, but I know that songs are supposed to make good sense. Since she was brought up in a musical home of free and unfrozen song and is musically inclined as well as independently disposed, she would not con- sider herself true to her musical heritage if she permitted crudities of phrase to appear in her songs. More than any other singer I know, Mrs. Riddle tends to create as she sings-and no songs are completely exempt from change, not even the Child ballads. I have recorded several of these at different times, and I note the changes that she makes in both words and music. To her, singing is a creative activity, and in slight and subtle ways she irresistibly makes her songs as she sings. Her entire repertory appears to be more or less tentative in form. It is doubtless possible for her to sing a given song the same way twice, but she is not likely to do so if there has been an appreciable interval of time between the renditions. Mrs. Riddle and the other people of the Miller community often speak of the late Robert (Uncle Bob) Stark as one of the best singers in the hills. Beyond doubt he is one of the best on my tapes in quality of voice, frontier technique, and volume. "When he opened up he could be heard for at least a mile," says Mrs. Riddle. "I know, because it's a mile as the crow flies, from his house to mine, and many a time I've heard him singing while he sat on his front porch as he often did of a summer evening." More than once I have heard Mrs. Riddle and her relatives the Finches and Starks say that "Uncle Bob didn't sing like anybody else. Even the church songs-he sang them different. He said he sang them like he liked to hear them-and everybody at the church knew it and had to follow him because he had the loudest voice." Tradition meant a great deal to Uncle Bob, but he believed that singing as he pleased was a part of tradition, as well as a part of his birthright.
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Folksingers and the Re-Creation of Folksong Author(s): John Quincy Wolf Source: Western Folklore,Vol. 26, No. 2 (Apr., 1967), pp. 101-111
Berry Sutterfield, of Marshall, Arkansas, is a memorable character. Any sensitive person who has seen his nobly rustic face, adorned with its sweep- ing white mustaches, and has listened to his wit and his reflections on the ways of the world will never forget him. Mr. Sutterfield knows forty to fifty excellent old songs, which he sings with care and precision. He says that he never changes a folksong and never even patches. Tapes made at intervals of several years show identical words and identical melody and therefore substantiate his claim. Furthermore, he has sung for me several fragments of songs which he could complete by patching. He is not satisfied, however, unless the song is restored to the exact form in which he formerly knew it.
Despite Mr. Sutterfield's stout resistance to change, the verbal and musical texts of his songs strongly suggest that, though he may have attempted to sing the songs exactly as he heard them, he unconsciously adapted them to
his own inclinations. No other singer that I have recorded is more consistently irregular in words and music. Stanzas of varying lengths, lines with extra syllables and beats, lines with missing syllables and beats indicate that he may have learned the songs imperfectly. And certain recurrent turns of melodic phrase in several of his songs bear the mark of his own style and therefore suggest that he altered the songs when he learned them. But once he established his version of any song, he apparently froze it, and during the ensuing years all other versions have seemed spurious or incorrect to him. " 'Barb'ry Allen' as I sing it has got seventeen verses," says Mr. Sutterfield with assurance, "and if you hear somebody sing it with more or less than seventeen verses, it ain't right." He sings a Civil War song with General Rosescot and the Battle of Murphysburg in it. I am sure that he would not care to change either, regardless of history. Incidentally, his wife sings with him in all the irregular turns his words and melody take-further evidence that years ago he froze the form of his songs.
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Maude Minish Sutton of Caldwell County, N.C., was a teacher, writer, and folklorist. She taught in Chapel Hill, China Grove, Avery County, and Lenoir, N.C. Sutton was also a contributor to North Carolina newspapers and on the staff of the Lenoir News-Topic. She married Dennis Howard Sutton. The collection is a variety of Sutton's writings and papers. It contains a typed copy of A Very Great Lady, a short story by Sutton about collecting family papers to solve a mystery, and a number of folklore materials including notes on folk games, ballads of Avery County Sutton collected in 1917 and 1918, notes on cotton baron Simpson Bobo Tanner, and a list of charter members of the North Carolina Folklore Society. Three notebooks are available on microfilm which contain details of a 1921 hiking trip, Sutton's poetry, and newspaper clippings.
Creator Sutton, Maude Minish, d. 1936.
A woman of the hills : the work of Maude Minish Sutton
Author: Daniel W Patterson; Bayard Morgan Wootten
Publisher: 1977.
Edition/Format: Article : English
Publication: Southern exposure. Vol. 5, no. 2-3 ([1977])
Sunday, July 29, 1934, part of a feature story on Mrs. Maude Minnish Sutton and her collection of ballads.
A Woman of the Hills: A Blue Ridge Sketch by Maude Minish Sutton, 1927
Maude Minish Sutton, 'Ballad Hunting' (unpublished, in the possession of Daniel Patterson, n.d.),
Miss Maude Minish (later Mrs. Denis H. Sutton
Mrs. Sutton's ballads deposited in Houghton Library, Harvard University
Kittredge, George Lyman, 1860-1941, collector. George Lyman Kittredge additional papers on American songs and ballads, 1905-1937: Guide.
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
Maude Rennell Minish
(11) Sutton, Maude Minish, d. 1936. Ballads collected in Avery county 1917-1918 : typescript (signed) with manuscript annotations and corrections (by Kittredge?), undated. 2 folders.
Maude Rennell Minish Sutton was a teacher, writer, folklorist, of Caldwell County, North Carolina.
Draft article enclosed in envelope from the University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
See also MS Am 2470.
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North Carolina Vertical File Collection Index
04) Some Folk Songs of the Blue Ridge Mountains : Barbary Allen (Raleigh) News and Observer : article, with song, by Maude Minish Sutton, tracing the history of the acclaimed folk song "Barbary Allen" 01-06-1935
05) Romantic Ballad Links Blue Ridge Singers with Crusaders (Raleigh) News and Observer : article, with song, by Maude Minish Sutton, about a ballad, "The Gypso Davie," that is almost as well known in the Blue Ridge as Barbary Allen, having a great many variants and being one of the few traditional English ballads that have some slight historical background 01-13-1935
06) Folk Songs of the Blue Ridge : The Brown Girl (Raleigh) News and Observer : article, with song, by Maude Minish Sutton, about the pretty traditional English ballad of Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender," known in the mountains simply as "The Brown Girl' 01-20-1935
07) Folk Songs of the Blue Ridge : Willie Ransome and Lord Randall (Raleigh) News and Observer : article, with songs, by Maude Minish Sutton, about two popular folk songs collected in Avery and Henderson Counties, respectively, "Willie Ransome" and "Lord Randall" 01-27-1935
08) Folk Songs from the Blue Ridge : The Golden Willow Tree (Raleigh) News and Observer : article, with song, by Maude Minish Sutton, about the ballad of "The Golden Willow Tree" having its first appearance on a printed page in Pepy's Ballads of 1682, where it was called "Sir Walter Raleigh in the Lowlands" 02-03-1935
09) Folk Songs From the Blue Ridge : Oh Lily O (Raleigh) News and Observer : article, with song, by Maude Minish Sutton, about the song "Oh Lily O" and the experienced of collecting folk sings from "Granny" Houston 02-10-1935
10) Folk Songs from the Blue Ridge : One Morning in May (Raleigh) News and Observer : article, with song, by Maude Minish Sutton, about the song "One Morning in May" along with other songs that are similar 02-17-1935
11) Folk Songs of the Blue Ridge : Sweet Willie (Raleigh) News and Observer : article, with song, by Maude Minish Sutton, about the old folk song "Sweet Willie," once known as "Earl Brand" 03-03-1935
12) Blue Ridge Folk Songs : The Hangman (Raleigh) News and Observer : article, with song, by Maude Minish Sutton, about "The Hangman," a version of the old European ballad "The Maid Freed from the Gallows" 03-24-1935
13) Blue Ridge Folk Songs : The Two Sisters (Raleigh) News and Observer : article, with song, by Maude Minish Sutton, about the old ballad "The Two Sisters," one of the earliest of the traditional ballads, which has been found in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales as well 07-07-1935
14) Blue Ridge Folk Songs : Courting Song (Raleigh) News and Observer : article, with song, by Maude Minish Sutton, about the author's experiences in gathering folk songs, especially in relation to courting songs
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Pete Steele Bio from Burea: Alan Lomax made these recordings March 30, 1938 at the Steele home in Hamilton, Ohio. He had become aware of Pete Steel’s remarkable banjo virtuosity at the Ohio Valley Folk Festival in Cincinnati a few days earlier. Born March 5, 1891, Pete grew up in the Corbin - London, Kentucky area. At age nineteen he married London native, Lillie Swanner. Over several years’ time he held a variety of jobs in various parts of Indiana and Ohio as well as Kentucky. It was from East Bernstadt near London that in 1937 the family moved to Hamilton, Ohio. There Mr. Steele joined the ranks of the many other rural Kentuckians who had found dependable work at the Champion Paper Company.
Liner Notes by Ed Kahn
It was early in the summer of 1957 that I first met Pete Steele and his wife, Lillie. A friend of mine, Arthur Rosenbaum, and I decided to drive over to Hamilton, Ohio, and try our luck at finding them. We both knew that for the past number of years the
Steele family had been living in Hamilton; however,
no one seemed quite sure how to get in touch with
them, and moreover, no one that we knew of had
visited them recently. After a few phone calls, we
were able to find the Steele residence, and in a
short time Pete Steele was singing and playing for
us.
On this first occasion, Pete used my banjo because
he had recently sold his in order to buy a pistol.
He said that he hadn't played for several months,
but in a matter of minutes he was playing the instrumentals that had won him fame through his
Library of Congress recordings. On that visit, we
recorded much of the material on a small home recorder.
In the last part of August, I was able to visit him
again. It is from this session that the material
in this album is taken. Although he hadn't yet
purchased a banjo for himself, he had played other
banjos with some regularity since "Ule time of our
first visit. The time spent with the Steele has
afforded experiences that I shall never forget;
ranging from the fine cooking of Mrs. Steele to the
music that was so often being made.
To the folklorist, Pete Steele is a very interesting
informant. He represents a strong tradition of the
Kentucky hills, in its various traditions. Wherever
he lived or viSited, he picked up songs, molded them
into his own style, and yet preserved the essence
of the material that he learned.
Throughout his life, music has served a very strong
function, perhaps stronger with Steele than other
folk musicians being studied today. Because of his
lack of formal education, he has had to rely on
materials other than the printed page for the
sources of both his musical material and for his entertainment.
Music has always been a major source of entertainment
for Pete Steele. Whether he is singing
harmony with his wife, entertaining friends, or
playing a complicated banjo instrumental, he is
aware of his ability to Sing songs "the old way"
and play almost anything on his instrument. It is
perhaps the amazing versatility that he has on the
banjo that has given him the most pleasure, for,
unlike many other folk musicians, Steele has a
great versatility of styles and techniques on his
instrument.
While most folk instrumentalists generally use one
style, Steele uses many, deciding for each song
which style will be the most effective. The right
hand technique most often employed by Pete Steele
is a type of double thumbing with an occasional
pinch of the first and fifth strings in order to
add syncopation. This style is clearly heard on
"Ellen Smith" and "Pretty Polly."
In addition to this style, Pete Steele also used
a standard "up-pick" style. This can be heard on
"Last Payday at Coal Creek." On many of 'the faster
numbers he prefers frailing and "double noting" or
double thumbing. This style is well illustrated
by his renditions of "Shady Grove" and "Goin' Round
this World, Baby Mine."
In all of these styles, Steele uses only his fore
finger and thumb. To add to the versatility
already achieved in his right hand, he uses as
wide a variety of tunings as the individual songs
may demand. The effects achieved are perhaps
best shown in "Little Birdie" and "Train-Pullin'
the Crooked Hill."
Pete Steele was born in the small town of
Woodbine, Kentucky, on March 5, 1891. It was
in this area, frbm his father and people that
he met, that he began to learn songs and the
techniques of playing the five string banjo.
". . . at six years old, my father made a small
banjo. He took a sieve and put a squirrel's
hide on for the banjo head; put thread strings
on it and that's how I learned to play a banjo.
My father was a violin player. . . one of the
best, I think. . . I learned most of my banjo
pieces from him. We had lots of good times
together playing music at the last days of
schools and at box suppers and so on. And when
I think of those good times we had together,
I get to feeling very sad, wishing we could be
together and live them days over. . ."
At the age of nineteen, Mr. Steele married
Lillie Swanner. Miss Swanner was born in
Pittsburg, Kentucky, but at the age of six
her family moved to London, Kentucky, where
her father bought a farm. Of London, she
remembers: ". . .I worked with my father in
the fields as my brothers were much younger
and not yet old enough to work. At the age
of sixteen I got married. . ." After their marriage, they lived in various
parts of Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio, where
Mr. Steele worked at jobs ranging from
carpentering to making staves for whiskey
barrels, and back to farming, his original
occupation. Probably the most formative years
for the Steeles, from a folk music point of
view, were the eighteen years they spent in
Harlan County where Pete worked in various
coal mines. From Harlan County, they moved
to Indianapolis, Indiana, for a few years,
and then back to Laurel County, Kentucky, where
both Pete and Lillie Steele had spent their
childhoods. Of East Bernstadt, in Laurel County,
Pete remembers: ". . . there I played my banjo
for our neighbors to square dance. We would
all meet at one neighbor house one Saturday
night and the next Saturday night at another
house. . ."
After leaving East Bernstadt, they moved to
Hamilton, Ohio, where they have lived since
1937. In 1938 Alan Lomax recorded the Steeles
for the Library of Congress Folk Music Archives.
Although more than. thirty recordings were made,
only a few of these have been made available
to the public through records issued by the
Library.