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 stripmining 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