"Over coffee and liqueurs we would sometimes listen to John Jacob Niles' recordings. Our favourite was 'I Wonder As I Wander,' sung in a clear, high-pitched voice with a quaver and a modality all his own. The metallic clang of his dulcimer never failed to produce ecstasy. He had a voice which summoned memories of Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere. There was something of the Druid in him. Like a psalmist, he intoned his verses in an ethereal chant which the angels carried aloft to the Glory seat. When he sang of Jesus, Mary and Joseph they became living presences. A sweep of the hand and the dulcimer gave forth magical sounds which caused the stars to gleam more brightly, which peopled the hills and meadows with silvery figures and made the brooks to babble like infants. We would sit there long after his voice had faded out, talking of Kentucky where he was born, talking of the Blue Ridge mountains and the folk from Arkansas..." --Henry Miller, Plexus pp. 366-367.

"Like the legendary characters of his ballads, John Jacob Niles seems to have lived down the centuries, and through his collection of folk music and his incomparable recorded performances will live through generations to come." -Nelson Stevens, 1957

Rare American folk connoisseurs rejoice! If you saw the recent Dylan documentary by Martin Scorsese, you won't forget the clip of Niles singing Go Away From My Window.

John Jacob Niles (b.1892 - d.1980) was an American composer, singer, and collector of traditional ballads. Called the "Dean of American Balladeers" Niles was an important influence on the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, with Joan Baez, Burl Ives and Peter, Paul and Mary, among others, recording his songs.

Niles learned music theory from his mother, and began writing down folk music as a teenager. He became a serious student of Appalachian folk music by transcribing traditional songs from oral sources while an itinerant employee of the Burroughs Corporation in eastern Kentucky, from 1910 to 1917.

After serving in the Army during WWI, in which he was injured, he studied music in France. Returning to the United States in 1920, he continued his studies at the Cincinnati. He sang opera in Chicago and folk songs on early radio. In 1925, he moved to New York City and held various jobs in the entertainment industry. In the 1930s, he toured Europe and the United States with contralto Marion Kerby. He performed at the White House in 1938, and on occasion at the Newport Folk Festival during the 1950s.

In the 1920s, Niles began publishing music. He made four extended trips into the southern Appalachians as an assistant to photographer Doris Ulmann, again transcribing traditional songs from oral sources, including the ballads "Pretty Polly" and "Barbara Allen." On other occasions, he transcribed songs he heard sung by African Americans and by fellow soldiers in World War I.

Niles is also a noted songwriter. His songs, many of which are based on traditional sources, include "Venezuela," "Black is the colour of my true love’s hair," and the haunting Christmas song "I wonder as I wander."

Henry Miller’s Plexus includes a powerful tribute to Niles's recording of this song. Niles composed "Go 'Way From My Window" when he was a mere 16 years old, but did not perform it until 1930. Marlene Dietrich recorded it and sang it on stage. Bob Dylan quoted its first line in his song "It ain’t me babe”.

Starting in 1938, he recorded a number of his compositions and transcribed songs, performing the material in an intense, dramatic manner. He employed a trademark very high falsetto to portray female characters, and often accompanied himself on an Appalachian Dulcimer, Lute, or other plucked stringed instrument.

In 1936, he married Rena Lipetz. They settled on the Boot Hill farm in Clarck County Kentucky, where they spent the rest of their lives. He is buried at the nearby St. Hubert's Episcopal Church.

Niles, old beyond his years, accompanied by handmade dulcimer, had an intense other-worldly fallen angel like voice that perfectly captures the hauntingly lonely and creepy hill country feel where the bulk of his catalog of songs originated. Niles, like Jean Ritchie, was a folk musicologist and performer from Kentucky who spent his time wandering through isolated American mountain communities collecting folk songs, or scraps of melodies and lyrics, embellishing them with his own inventive arrangements and often fleshing them out by writing additional verses. For example, his version of "Black Is the Colour of My True Love's Hair" has become the definitive arrangement for all versions following (from Nina Simone to Patty Waters), because while he loved the verse he disliked the original tune. This is why folk historians have had a famously difficult time classifying which songs in Niles repertoire are originals or reinventions of songs in the public domain.

http://lix.in/93ca0b99

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