John Jacob Niles - Books by Niles

Folksinger and song collector, born in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. After musical training in the USA and France, he studied Southern Appalachian and other folk music, publishing hundreds of songs and performing internationally.

Called the "Dean of American Balladeers", Niles was an important influence on the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, with Joan Baez, Burl Ives, and Peter, Paul and Mary, among others, recording his songs.

Niles learned music theory from his mother, and began writing down folk music as a teenager. He became a serious student of Appalachian folk music by transcribing traditional songs from oral sources while an itinerant employee of the Burroughs Corporation in eastern Kentucky, from 1910 to 1917. Returning to the United States in 1920, he continued his studies at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. He sang opera in Chicago and folk songs on early radio.

In the 1920s, Niles began publishing music. He made four extended trips into the southern Appalachians as an assistant to photographer Doris Ulmann, again transcribing traditional songs from oral sources, including the ballads "Pretty Polly" and "Barbara Allen." On other occasions, he transcribed songs he heard sung by African Americans and by fellow soldiers in World War I.

Niles is also a noted songwriter. His songs, many of which are based on traditional sources, include "Venezuela," "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair," and the haunting Christmas song "I Wonder As I Wander." Henry Miller's Plexus includes a powerful tribute to Niles's recording of this song. Niles composed "Go 'Way From My Window" when he was a mere 16 years old, but did not perform it until 1930. Bob Dylan quoted its first line in his song "It Ain't Me Babe." Later in life, Niles published compositions in a more classical style, including works for choir and art songs for voice and piano.

Starting in 1938, he recorded a number of his compositions and transcribed songs, performing the material in an intense, dramatic manner. The John Jacob Niles Center for American Music at the University of Kentucky is named after him, and displays a number of traditional instruments he handcrafted.

Books by Niles

1929 (with Douglas Moore).