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Ballads
Gloom & Doom Ballads from The British Islands & Appalachia
Growing up in suburbia, with no roots in traditional culture, I was a fairly typical product of my time and place in terms of my musical inputs: Lynard Skynard, the Marshall Tucker Band, the Atlanta Rhythm Section, and the other big southern rock bands of the 1970s plus folks like Bob Dylan, The Band, Roger McGuinn, and various country crossover acts. Many of these musicians were influenced by roots music even if that is not mainly what they did. During my high school years I gradually drifted into mainstream country music, and in college I briefly dabbled in bluegrass. It was through bluegrass that I became aware of old ballads. I found them fascinating, in part because of their strangeness.
Ballads are especially good for folks like myself who lack a high level of natural musical talent. For years I would occasionally take out a mandolin and play a simple melody line, singing an octave lower. This combination is simple but effective. It does, however, impose a little more musical rigidity on many songs compared with their native voice-only habitat. The strangeness factor is diminished when an instrument is added to the voice.
Very few old ballads are pleasant in terms of content. Indeed, those without fatalities are rare. In general, these ballads originated in their English-language forms in the British Islands, including Scotland and Ireland. Many versions of British ballads also exist in other European languages, and often the place of ultimate origin is unclear. From the British Islands, many ballads moved into Appalachia along with settlers from overseas. There, the ballads continued to evolve into different versions and styles. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, manly old ballads functioned like today's tabloid press. Sensational murders were perhaps the most common topic, along with shipwrecks, (and later) train wrecks, other disasters, false-hearted lovers, and the many possible twists and turns of human affairs. Just as today there is an obsession with the British royal family, so too, it seems, were ordinary people much interested in the various affairs of lords and ladies during centuries past.
Here are a few old ballads sung in a traditional manner with no instrument other than a single human voice:
Pretty Saro (long version)
Pretty Saro (short version)
Here are old ballads sung in a traditional manner but with some instrumental accompaniment, usually a mandolin and an octave mandolin:
Cruel Lincoln [Lamkin] <notes>
Fair Margaret and Sweet William <notes>
False William [Lady Isobel and the Elf Knight] <notes>
Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender (Appalachian) & Lord Thomas and Fair Annie (Scottish) <notes>