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Music played an important
part in the early life of John Jacob Niles, and he would
spend his life collecting, composing, and performing
folk songs. By the age of 15 he had begun collecting
songs in the Appalachian Mountains, a habit he would
continue while serving as a ferry pilot in the U.S. Air
Corps during World War I. Niles remained in France after
the war, studying music at the Universite de Lyon and
the Schola Cantorum in Paris. |
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He would continue his
studies for two more years at the Cincinnati
Conservatory of Music upon returning to the United
States. In 1921, he came to New York where he met the
singer
Marion Kerby.
Kerby shared his
love of folk music, so the two decided to work as a
team, traveling throughout Europe and the United States.
Niles collected folk songs
in the Southwest while working as a guide and chauffeur
for photographer
Doris Ulmann.
During the '20s and '30s, he began publishing
collections of folk songs, including Singing Soldiers
(1927), Songs My Mother Never Taught Me (1929), and
Songs of the Hill-folk (1934). In the '30s he began to
perform solo, traveling widely and singing at high
schools, churches, and colleges. He dressed in
bright-colored shirts, wore corduroys, and sang in a
striking, high falsetto.
Barry Alfonso,
recalling the first time he heard Niles on record,
wrote, "Out of my stereo came his startling,
other-worldly voice, the sound of someone enraptured —
or maybe possessed. He seemed to embody his dire ballad,
rather than to merely perform it."
Niles wrote a number of classic folk
songs that are often mistaken for traditional material,
including, "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair,"
"Go 'Way From My Window," and "I Wonder as I Wander." He
recorded numerous albums, including
Early American Ballads
(1939) and
American Folk Lore
(1941). He also composed more formal music, writing the
oratorio "Lamentation," which would receive its first
performance at the Indiana State Teachers College in
1951. Between 1967 and 1970 he would compose a work
based on the poetry of
Thomas Merton
titled "The Niles-Merton Songs." The Songs of John Jacob
Niles was published in 1975 and Niles would continue to
perform publicly until two years before his death in
1980. Part Renaissance man, part traveling minstrel,
Niles left an invaluable body of recordings, folk song
collections, and compositions behind. His work has
greatly aided the preservation and continued vitality of
American folk culture. |
