PATTY LOVELESS & ALMEDA "GRANNY" RIDDLE

This video has some terrific footage of the 1920s.

Ever since watching John Sayles' Matewan, I grew fascinated with coal miners, a fascination beyond the Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), starring Sissey Spacek, a movie on the life of Loretta Lynn that crystalized her singing career.  Lynn recorded "Coal Miner's Daughter" in 1969.  

Speaking of mining towns, my mom was born in Bisbee, Arizona near the Mexican border, while my grandfather, a mining engineer, was on assignment there to assay minerals in the mines surrounding the town.  You can see an image of Bisbee here:

Definitely a mining town.  And this is where my mom was born.

This morning, Saturday, January 20, 2018, after reading Gary North's review of Emmylou Harris' career, I listend to a few of her songs and loved the bluegrass pitch in her voice on "Troubles and Trials."  I searched YouTube for other singers who take a try at "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive," but cannot find any better than Patty Loveless.  Though Kathy Mattea does a decent job it and actually does shine in her performance of "Black Lung."  Besides Emmylou Harris and Patty Loveless, I found a third singer whose name I'd never heard before.  There are times where it feels like I am waking up from oblivion for the first time.  Her name is Almeda Riddle, 1898-1986.  

Almeda Riddle (November 21, 1898 – June 30, 1986)^[1] was an American folk singer. Born and raised in Cleburne County, Arkansas, she learned music from her father, a fiddler and a teacher of shape note singing. She collected and sang traditional ballads throughout her life, usually unaccompanied. Introduced to a wider public by folklorist John Quincy Wolf and musicologist Alan Lomax, Riddle recorded extensively, and claimed to be able to perform over 500 songs. She was often known as Granny Riddle.

And here she is singing Black Jack Davey.  What a voice.  Reminiscent certainly of Hazel Dickens, 1925-2011.

The song derives from the Scottish ditty called Raggle Taggle Gypsy, 1720s.  Here is a synopsis of the song.  

I also liked this one where Almeda Riddle sings American folk songs for children.