Book description
Louisville native John Jacob Niles (1892--1980) is considered to be
one of our nation's most influential musicians. As a composer and
balladeer, Niles drew inspiration from the deep well of traditional
Appalachian and African American folk songs. At the age of sixteen
Niles wrote one of his most enduring tunes, "Go 'Way from My
Window," basing it on a song fragment from a black farm worker.
This iconic song has been performed by folk artists ever since and may
even have inspired the opening line of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe."
In I Wonder as I Wander: The Life of John Jacob Niles, the first
full-length biography of Niles, Ron Pen offers a rich portrait of the
musician's character and career. Using Niles's own accounts from his
journals, notebooks, and unpublished autobiography, Pen tracks his
rise from farm boy to songwriter and folk collector extraordinaire.
Niles was especially interested in documenting the voices of his
fellow World War I soldiers, the people of Appalachia, and the
spirituals of African Americans. In the 1920s he collaborated with
noted photographer Doris Ulmann during trips to Appalachia, where he
transcribed, adapted, and arranged traditional songs and ballads such
as "Pretty Polly" and "Black Is the Color of My True
Love's Hair."
Niles's preservation and presentation of American folk songs earned
him the title of "Dean of American Balladeers," and his
theatrical use of the dulcimer is credited with contributing to the
popularity of that instrument today. Niles's dedication to the folk
music tradition lives on in generations of folk revival artists such
as Jean Ritchie, Joan Baez, and Oscar Brand. I Wonder as I Wander
explores the origins and influences of the American folk music
resurgence of the 1950s and 1960s, and finally tells the story of a
man at the forefront of that movement.
""Pen writes about Niles 'warts and all,' as the saying
goes, but in I Wonder As I Wander the warts are not allowed to
overwhelm a telling portrait of an American original, both in his
music an in the unapologetic way John Jacob Niles lived his
life." -- Sun Chronicle" --
Ron Pen, associate professor of music and director of the John
Jacob Niles Center for American Music and the Appalachian Studies
Program at the University of Kentucky, is the editor of The Ballad
Book of John Jacob Niles and of Jean Ritchie's Folk Songs of the
Southern Appalachians.
