Ozark Folksongs, Volume I: British Ballads and Songs

The first of four volumes of Ozark folksong collected by Vance Randolph in Missouri and Arkansas, published by the State Historical Society of Missouri between 1946 and 1950 and reissued in a revised edition by the University of Missouri Press in 1980 with an introduction by W. K. McNeil. This volume gathers ballads and songs of British origin, including Child ballads, as they were sung in the Ozarks. Randolph printed texts as his singers gave them, preserving dialect and leaving forgotten lines unfilled, so entries record what one informant sang rather than a composite reading. Melodies appear for a portion of the entries, given as unaccompanied single lines, and a bibliography closes the volume.