Jean Ritchie Black Waters

Performed by Jean Ritchie and her sons Jon and Peter Pickow Recorded 1993 in Port Washington, NY This topical song written in the 1960’s mourns the effects of strip-mining and mountaintop removal mining for coal on the lad in the Kentucky Appalachians. Jean Ritchie was a fine singer of traditional ballads. She was born in 1922 into a musical family in Viper, Kentucky