Happy Folk Song Friday! Today I am sharing one of my very favorites, Shady Grove. This is a song that was preserved by Jean Ritchie, the absolute queen of folk songs. She is known as the “Mother of Folk”. I have a post sharing her bio, she was a truly fascinating woman, and incredibly important to folk history. She was born and raised in Eastern Kentucky, and you might have seen that recently there were devastating floods in Eastern Kentucky, where over 1/4 of the residents are already living at or below the poverty level. This week on my instagram I shared about a fundraiser for the victims of the Kentucky floods. If you feel able, you can donate directly in that post and 100% of donations go to Aspire Appalachia, a nonprofit that serves displaced Kentucky residents, or you can purchase my digital download print of Jean Ritchie for just $2.50, and 100% of the sale goes to the Red Cross Kentucky Disaster Relief Funds. Thank you for your consideration!
Here is a recording of Jean Ritchie Performing Shady Grove on the Appalachian Dulcimer, on Pete Seeger’s “Rainbow Quest” TV series.
She writes about this song in her book “Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians”: When her dad was a boy, a man came in to the school house one day with a fiddle. As he began to play, the entire class couldn’t contain their excitement, and jumped up and began to dance along to the tune. She says it was hard to stay concentrated for the rest of that day, and children would randomly start dancing in little spurts throughout the day. Isn’t that so fun? The traditional activity with this song, therefore, is a simple clogging activity! Step along to the rhythm of the song. The instructions are listed on the song card.
Download and print this 4x6 card to add to your song collection. A perfect addition to your music area! Personally, we sing this song to our children every night as part of our lullaby repertoire, albeit a bit less lively than the clogging-style that led to so much excitement in the youngsters so many years ago.
Let me know if you download and give this song a try, I love hearing from you.