Influences, Inspiration and Where to Find Good Ballads
This is a hodgepodge of musician websites, public domain clearinghouses for music, and books of ballads in the public domain. You don't really need encyclopedic knowledge of murder ballads, broadside ballads, or poetry to play
Charles Vess' The Book of Ballads, which I read so many times on vacation last year that I almost wore it out.
Those antique books of English and Spanish folk ballads that I bought on the same vacation
Pentangle and so John Renbourn and Jacqui McShee (whom I've seen live twice and are two of my all time favorite shows along with Ravi Shankar).
Steeleye Span
Solas
Silly Wizard
Silly Sisters and consequently Maddy Prior and June Tabor
Anne Briggs
My autoharps and backpacker's guitar
Rise Up Singing
Ewan MacColl
Meg's 1001 Nights
My Dog's in the Vineyard character named (Pretty) Polly;
The folk tale component of Steal Away Jordan
Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention
Bluegrass
All the other random sources of "Barley Music" I encounter. (Chris calls the folk music I listen to "Barley Music" after "The Wind that Shakes the Barley".)
American Memory Sound Recordings from the US Library of Congress
Broadside Ballads and the Oral Tradition
Child's Ballads
The Digital Tradition.
And, of course, murder ballads and Blackjack!
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