Early Child Ballads

Good background information on ballads for the teacher. Written by Dani of the Seven Wells (Dani Zweig).

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/AUTHMENU.htm

The Camelot Project at the University of Rochester: Authors

This is a great site for the kids to explore the beginning of popular nursery rhymes that originated from medieval ballads. Also included are links to numerous ballads with some translations/ descriptions to help out with the Old English.

http://contemplator.com/folk3/rendal.html

Lord Rendal: This site offers folk, traditional and popular music including lyrics, midi, tune information and the history behind the folksongs and ballads. Areas covered are Irish, British and American folk music including Francis J. Child Ballads and sea shanties. It is also a great site to provide the primary source, the ballad Lord Rendal. Includes midi files, background information, additional versions, and related links.

http://contemplator.com/child/variant12.html

Contemplations from the Marianas Trench

This site offers 15 versions of the ballad Lord Randal with each primary source identified.

http://contemplator.com/child/index.html

Francis J. Child Ballads: Lesley Nelson’s Child Ballad Website

This site offers a list of Child ballads.

http://www.contemplator.com/history/broadside.html#links

Ballads and Broadsides Links

Links to midi files.

http://www.acronet.net/~robokopp/english/inlondon.htm

Barbara Allen

This is a good site to read the ballad, Barbara Allen. The English and Scottish both claim the original ballad in different versions, and both versions were brought over to the US by the earliest settlers. The version used here is the English one. The tune is traditional.

Modern Recordings:

Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger. MacColl and Seeger recorded many traditional ballads. Their most comprehensive collections is the ten-record set The Long Harvest, Argo Record Company, London, 1967, which presents ballads in multiple variants from multiple traditions or sources.

Joan Baez. Baez made the traditional ballad popular in the sixties and seventies. The recordings in "The Joan Baez Ballad Book" include ballads that students may find interesting. Joan Baez, Volume 2 includes the ballad, Barbra Allen.