Texas Gladden was an American folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 singer born in Saltville, Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

. She was best known for her traditional Appalachia

Appalachia

Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...

n ballad

Ballad

A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...

 style of singing, which she began to record in the 1930s. In 1941, along with her brother, musician Hobart Smith

Hobart Smith

Hobart Smith was an American old-time musician. He was most notable for his appearance with his sister, Texas Gladden, on a series of Library of Congress recordings in the 1940s and his later appearances at various festivals during the folk music revival of the 1960s...

, she began to record with pioneer folk archivist and musicologist Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...

. The largest collection of her work, which includes 37 tracks of songs and interviews is compiled on the album Texas Gladden: Ballad Legacy, which Lomax produced as part of his Southern Journey series. This album contains traditional ballads of Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...

/Celtic

Celtic music

Celtic music is a term utilised by artists, record companies, music stores and music magazines to describe a broad grouping of musical genres that evolved out of the folk musical traditions of the Celtic people of Western Europe...

 origin, such as "Barbara Allen", "Mary Hamilton

Mary Hamilton

"Mary Hamilton" and "The Fower Maries" are two common names for a famous, apparently fictional sixteenth-century ballad from Scotland....

", and "Lord Thomas", as well as regional songs and even a Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

-era ghost story

Ghost story

A ghost story may be any piece of fiction, or drama, or an account of an experience, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them. Colloquially, the term can refer to any kind of scary story. In a narrower sense, the ghost story has...

. She did not enjoy much fame during her life and has remained a relatively obscure artist.
Her work did experience a resurgence in popularity during the 1960s as she was rediscovered by Joan Baez

Joan Baez

Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....

, and more recently through harpist Joanna Newsom's

Joanna Newsom

Joanna Newsom is an American harpist, pianist and singer-songwriter from Nevada City, California.- Early life :Newsom grew up in the small town of Nevada City, California...

 cover of the traditional Appalachian style

Old-time music

Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music, with roots in the folk music of many countries, including England, Scotland, Ireland and countries in Africa. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dance, buck dance, and clogging. The genre also...

 song "Three Babes".

External links

• Texas Gladden biography and review of Ballad Legacy http://www.mustrad.org.uk/reviews/gladden.htm, http://www.mustrad.org.uk/reviews/gladden2.htm