Life, love and literature

I had a mother who sang to me!! All kinds of songs. She loved the old ballads that had come over from the old world – Like BARBARA ALLAN, a favorite English ballad. She loved singing the sad songs of the age of sentimentally! So tragic and so dark at times. My mother taught me many of the ballads. In my 7th grade music class. I can still see my classmates just having to sit and listen to me sing all of the verses of BARBARA ALLAN. My music teacher spent her summers going to the Appalachians to talk to the mountain folks and collect their ballads. I don’t know how she recorded them. She discovered that I could sing several, so she put me to work! I loved it, but did feel sympathetic to my classmates! They had manners back then and listened politely.