Curious Tales and Captivating Voices: The Ballad Singing Tradition of the Southern Appalachians
Abstract
This paper explores the ballad singing tradition of the Southern Appalachian mountains,
with a particular focus on Western North Carolina. This oral tradition and its rich
array of songs, some of which date back to the Middle Ages, found its way to North
America alongside European settlers. The ballads feature tales of romantic love, but
also address taboo topics such as violence, murder and infanticide. The Southern Appalachian
mountains specifically proved fertile ground for the preservation of these stories
in song. This paper discusses the history, preservation and development of the ballad
tradition in the British Isles and the United States, looking in particular at the
influence of two phenomena– isolation and the interest of outsiders–on preservation
and change in traditional ballads. This work also surveys the contemporary culture
of ballad singing, relying primarily on interviews with ballad singers, some of whom
belong to the eighth generation of singers in Madison County, North Carolina. While
the ballad tradition now moves from being a private pursuit as part of everyday life
to serving as an art form maintained by public performance and recording, the universal
themes in the stories and the power of the music continue to engage modern audiences.
Type
Master's thesisDepartment
Graduate Liberal StudiesPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/9229Citation
Baker, Wendy (2014). Curious Tales and Captivating Voices: The Ballad Singing Tradition of the Southern
Appalachians. Master's thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/9229.Collections
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