JOHN JACOB NILES
The Boone-Tolliver Recordings
LM Dupli-cation 4

LM Dupli-cation Website
www.john-jacob-niles.com
 

“Over coffee and liqueurs we would sometimes listen to John Jacob Niles’ recordings. The metallic clang of his dulcimer never failed to produce ecstasy… Like a psalmodist, he intoned his verses in an ethereal chant which the angels carried aloft to the Glory seat,” Henry Miller wrote in Plexus.

A major song source for the ‘60s folk revival, Niles (1892-1980) both collected and adapted ballads after absorbing those his family had long sung. In 1952, he formed his own label, Boone-Tolliver (named for his home region of Kentucky) and taped 35 songs in his living room accompanied by a dulcimer he’d crafted. Thirteen were released on two 10-inch LPs and are consolidated on CD here on ethnic music duo A Hawk and a Hacksaw’s own label.

Classically trained Niles sang in the formal falsetto style the Weavers and then the ‘60s folkies abandoned for more natural, comfortable tones. “Little Mattie Groves” and “Barbary Ellen” are among the CD’s four Child ballads. As a teen he wrote “Go ‘way from My Window” from a snippet one of his father’s workers sang.
Reprinted here, the LPs’ notes delve into some songs’ evolutions – especially tragic “Mary Hamilton,” which fuses events in the royal courts of 16th-century France and 18th-century Russia. We’re told that “The Little Mohee” is his family’s version as originally done by his father. Like Doc Watson, Niles grew up with the heart of Anglo American folk music right there in his home. — Bruce Sylvester