Background
John Jacob Niles was born on April 28, 1892 in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. He was the son of John Thomas Niles, a farmer who was a singer and square dance caller, and Lula Sarah Reisch, a church organist.
((Vocal Collection). 35 songs by Kentucky-born John Jacob ...)
(Vocal Collection). 35 songs by Kentucky-born John Jacob Niles, one of the most loved American vocal composers, whose songs are a staple of contest solo lists. 11 songs have been added for the 2015 expanded edition. Includes Gambling Songs and a collection of Niles' Appalachian Carols, as well as a preface by and biographical notes on the composer. New in the 2015 Revised and Expanded edition: The Blue Madonna * Calm is the Night * Careless Love * Reward * Wayfaring Stranger * The Cherry-Tree * Lulle Lullay * Down in yon forest * Jesus the Christ is born * The Seven Joys of Mary * See Jesus the Saviour Complete Table of Contents: The Black Dress * Black is the color of my true love's hair * The Blue Madonna * Calm Is the Night * Careless Love * The Carol of the Bells * Evening * The Flower of Jesse * Go 'way from my window * I wonder as I wander * Jesus, Jesus, Rest Your Head * The Lass from the Low Countree * Little Black Star * The Lotus Bloom * My Lover is a farmer lad * Reward * Ribbon Bow * The Robin and the Thorn * Sweet little boy Jesus * Unused I am to lovers * Wayfaring Stranger * What Songs Were Sung * When I get up into Heaven * The Wild Rider * The Rovin' Gambler * The Gambler's Lament * The Gambler's Wife (By-Low) * Gambler, don't you lose your place * Gamblyer's Song of the Big Sandy River * The Cherry-Tree * Lulle Lullay * Down in yon forest * Jesus the Christ is born * The Seven Joys of Mary * See Jesus the Saviour "These two lovely volumes for high and low voice are the result of years of growing scholarship around the work of a composer often slighted...We are fortunate indeed to have this latest generous edition, offering as it does a wealth of material for recital and pedagogic purposes. The inclusion of Niles's own notes from the original edition are particularly moving."-- Journal of Singing
https://www.amazon.com/Songs-John-Jacob-Niles-Collection/dp/0793525845?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0793525845
(A legend in the folk music community, John Jacob Niles en...)
A legend in the folk music community, John Jacob Niles enjoyed a lengthy career as a balladeer, folk collector, and songwriter. Ever close to his Kentucky roots, he spent much of his adulthood searching for the most well-loved songs of the southern Appalachia. The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles brings together a wealth of songs with the stories that inspired them, arranged by a gifted performer. This new edition includes all of the melodies, text, commentary, and illustrations of the 1961 original and features a new introduction by Ron Pen, director of the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music at the University of Kentucky.
https://www.amazon.com/Ballad-Book-John-Jacob-Niles/dp/0813109876?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0813109876
((Vocal Collection). This collection includes new arrangem...)
(Vocal Collection). This collection includes new arrangements for voice and piano of six songs originally published in Ten Christmas Carols from the Southern Appalachian Mountains, collected by John Jacob Niles, as well as familiar classics composed by Niles. The recorded performances will help all become familiar with these new settings. All selections are appropriate for student singers as well as more experienced singers for use in Christmas services. Contents: The Carol of the Birds * The Cherry Tree * Down in yon forest * The Flower of Jesse * I wonder as I wander * Jesus, Jesus, rest your head * Jesus the Christ, is born * Lulle Lullay * See Jesus, the Saviour * The Seven Joys of Mary * Sweet little boy Jesus * What Songs Were Sung.
https://www.amazon.com/John-Jacob-Niles-Christmas-Carols/dp/1423436954?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1423436954
composer singer music collector
John Jacob Niles was born on April 28, 1892 in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. He was the son of John Thomas Niles, a farmer who was a singer and square dance caller, and Lula Sarah Reisch, a church organist.
Niles attended public school in Louisville. At home, he learned to play the piano from his mother and to play stringed instruments from his father. While still in elementary school, Niles received a store-bought three-stringed dulcimer from his father with the admonition that in the future he would need to make his own instrument. At the age of twelve, the gift dulcimer was replaced by one of Niles's own construction. During his high school years, he began collecting folk music from his region. In 1909 he graduated from DuPont Manual High School in Louisville. In 1919 he studied at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and continued to give folk song concerts.
In 1907, Niles gave his first paid performance as part of a Chautauqua group.
Niles became a surveyor, an occupation that took him throughout Kentucky and expanded his interest and involvement in folk music collection. While traveling, Niles would give performances for local churches and other interested groups.
In 1917 he enlisted as a private in the Aviation Section of the Army Signal Corps. While serving in France in 1918, he nearly lost his life in a plane crash that left him partially paralyzed. Not until the mid-1920's was he again able to walk normally.
After his discharge, Niles remained in France, attending the University of Lyons and the Schola Cantorum in Paris, expanding his background in classical music.
In the early 1920's, Niles moved to New York City. While there, he met contralto Marion Kerby, and they created a folk song program with which they toured in the United States and Europe. Niles supplemented his musical earnings with a variety of positions, including night-club emcee, horse groom, and rose gardener. In addition, he contributed stories to Scribner's Magazine.
Starting in 1928, he was a driver for famed photographer Doris Ulmann. Together, they traveled the southwestern United States, where she photographed and he collected more folk material. By the 1920's, Niles's earliest folk song collections were published and available to the public. Chief among them were Impressions of a Negro Camp Meeting (1925); Singing Soldiers (1927); Seven Kentucky Mountain Tunes (1929); and The Songs My Mother Never Taught Me (1929, with Douglas S. Moore).
During the 1930's, Niles's concert performances expanded to nearly fifty per year, he collected songs in the states of southern Appalachia, and he engaged in an outpouring of folk song publication, collection, and arranging. The publications focused on Appalachia and included Songs of the Hill-Folk (1934), Ten Christmas Carols from the Southern Appalachian Mountains (1935), and Ballads, Carols and Tragic Legends from the Southern Appalachian Mountains (1937).
The popularity of his concerts and compositions led to a recording contract with RCA Victor.
In 1939 he recorded his first album, Early American Ballads. Early in the 1940's, Niles began work on an oratorio titled Lamentations, prompted by Hitler's actions in Europe. Meanwhile, he released two more albums, Early American Carols and Folk Songs (1940) and American Folk Lore (1941). Folk song collections continued to be released as The Singing Campus (1941), The Anglo-American Ballad Study Book (1945), and The Anglo-American Carol Study Book (1948). Niles even found time to write a book for children, Mr. Poof's Discovery (1947). Concert performances in the United States continued to draw audiences who appreciated his dulcimer playing and high-pitched falsetto song styling. Writing, recording, performing, and collecting continued throughout the 1950's. Musical experts estimate Niles collected more than 1, 000 folk tunes during his career, a feat earning him the title "Dean of American Balladeers. " Further song collections were published and released in the decade: The Shape-Note Study Book (1950) and the John Jacob Niles Suite (1952). In 1950, Niles completed Lamentations, started a decade earlier, an expression of opposition to authoritarian rule, be it fascist or Communist. Late in the decade, RCA Camden issued John Jacob Niles: Fiftieth Anniversary Album (1957) and Tradition Records released I Wonder as I Wander (1958).
The early 1960's brought forth an outpouring of publications from Niles: The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles (1961), Folk Carols for Young Actors (1962), Folk Ballads for Young Actors (1962), and John Jacob Niles Song Book for Guitar (1963). In the last half of the decade, albums titled John Jacob Niles: Folk Balladeer (1965) and The Best of John Jacob Niles (1967) were released. With advancing age, Niles began to limit concert performances to the eastern United States. During the last decade of his life, Niles remained close to his Boot Hill Farm. While there, he undertook the last major project of his career, setting to music twenty-two poems of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk and author who lived at Gethsemani Abbey near Bardstow. In 1972, he published the Niles-Merton Song Cycles. Four years later, The John Jacob Niles Bicentennial Song-Book was released.
(A legend in the folk music community, John Jacob Niles en...)
((Vocal Collection). 35 songs by Kentucky-born John Jacob ...)
((Vocal Collection). This collection includes new arrangem...)
On March 21, 1936, Niles married Rena Lipetz, a freelance writer; they had two children.