The Ballad of Almeda Riddle, Part One
A Woman
of the Ozarks
For most of her life, Almeda James Riddle lived a normal,
productive life of a mother and grandmother in the Arkansas Ozarks – except for
one thing. Music was even more important to her than it was to most of the
people around her; and music played an important role in everyone’s lives in
the Ozarks, whether it was church singing or singing lullabies to their
children. In the book, A Singer and Her
Songs: Almeda Riddle’s Book of Ballads, she introduced the first chapter by
stating:
“I
don’t remember when I began singing. About the time I began talking, I suppose.
Never
learned how to stop either, and I guess I won’t ever. The first ballet [ballad]
I
remember learning was the “Blind Child’s Prayer.” I saved it and this was the
real
A tornado struck the Riddle’s home on November 25, 1926, and
Almeda lost her husband and one child.
“After
the cyclone, my two little sons and one daughter and I came back to my father’s
farm in
the foothills of the Ozarks. But I always sang the ballads as did they. We all
loved
them. I
still collected and from memory wrote some down. But until 1949 or 1950 after
the
children were married and I had three grandchildren, I never had time to really
sit down
and
write all I remembered.”
Almeda’s treasury of songs was first discovered by John
Quincy Wolf in 1952. He began field recordings of her songs and stories, and
word began to spread about this invaluable and untapped resource in the Ozarks.
Alan Lomax, the famous folklorist, recorded Almeda Riddle in 1959 and brought
her into the world of professional folk singing and lecturing after Almeda’s
mother died in 1960. It was always her goal to put the song before the
performance. In other words, the lyrics and stories told in the ballads were more
important than any showmanship brought by the singer. Almeda spent many years
appearing around the country at universities and folk festivals. Almeda also
would frequently
perform at the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View, singing her ballads and telling
her stories.
Before Almeda passed away at the age of 87 on June 30, 1986,
she worked with George West on a half-hour documentary entitled, “Now Let’s
Talk About Singing.”
“My
goal was to get out as many of the old songs as possible
Almeda Riddle’s performances at the Ozark Folk Center can be
heard in the recordings donated to the Arkansas History Commission. The book, A Singer and Her Songs – Almeda Riddle’s
Book of Ballads can
be found in the book stacks at the History Commission. George West’s obituary
of Almeda Riddle can be found in the Folk Music Journal Sing Out!, which can be found at the Arkansas History Commission
with the journals and periodicals.
The next blog entry in this series will discuss one of the
more famous ballads Almeda Riddle performed, “Lady Margaret and Lord William.”
