Appalachian Dulcimer Traditions (27 page)

*Smith, L. Allen.
A Catalogue of Pre-Revival Appalachian Dulcimers.
Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1983. Out of print, and indispensable. The first scholarly work on the dulcimer, and the seedbed of all subsequent work.

Smith, Ralph Lee.
The Story of the Dulcimer.
Cosby, Tennessee: Crying Creek, 1986. My contribution. Out of print.

*Smith, Ralph Lee, with Madeline MacNeil.
Folk Songs of Old Kentucky: Two Song Catchers in the Kentucky Mountains, 1914 and 1916, with Arrangements for Appalachian Dulcimer.
Pacific, Missouri: Mel Bay, 2003. Contains early information on the dulcimer in the Cumberlands.

* — — —
Greenwich Village: The Happy Folk Singing Days, 1950s and 1960s
. Pacific, Missouri: Mel Bay, 2008.

Stoddart, Jess.
Challenge and Change in Appalachia: The Story of Hindman Settlement School.
Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2002. A readable, balanced, and immensely interesting account of the school and the settlement, which played important roles in the preservation and dissemination of the dulcimer.

Warner, Anne.
Traditional American Folk Songs from the Anne and Frank Warner Collection
. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1984. Wonderful personal recollections of the Hicks family of western North Carolina, whom the Warners visited in 1938, with careful transcriptions of many songs.

Wilgus, D. K.
Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship since 1898
. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1959. Reprint, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1982. This was Wilgus's Ph.D. thesis. It contains more about early 20th-century scholarly wrangling over ballads than matters to most people today, but I confess that I enjoyed all of it.

Williams, Herman K.
The First Forty Years of the Old Fiddler's Convention, Galax, Virginia.
N.p., n.d. A highly interesting local production, which includes winners of the dulcimer contests.

Williams, John Alexander.
Appalachia: A History
. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. An excellent and highly readable survey.

Yates, Mike, Elaine Bradke, and Malcolm Taylor.
Dear Companion: Appalachian Traditional Songs and Singers from the Cecil Sharp Collection
. English Folk Dance and Song Society, in association with Sharp's Folk Club, 2004. Published some 86 years after Sharp and Karpeles completed their 1916–1918 folk-song-collecting trips through the mountains, this book provides fascinating descriptions of their journey and experiences. It includes many photographs taken of his mountain informants by Sharp. A must-have for every Appalachian music lover's library.

Ralph Lee Smith
is a leading authority on the history of the dulcimer and of traditional Appalachian music. His books include
The Story of the Dulcimer
,
Appalachian Dulcimer Traditions
,
Songs and Tunes of the Wilderness Road
, and
Folk Songs of Old Kentucky
, the latter two with Madeline MacNeil as musical collaborator
.
His recordings include
Across the Blue Ridge
, another collaboration with Madeline MacNeil
.
Smith has taught Traditions courses in annual Dulcimer Week programs at Appalachian State University and Western Carolina University and is codirector of the annual Dulcimer Week at Shenandoah University. He holds a B.A. in English from Swarthmore College and an M.Ed. from the University of Virginia.