Jane Hicks Gentry

This is the story of a mountain woman whose life revolved around her family and an oral tradition of song and story. With nine children, she was too busy to write about her life, but songs and stories flowed from her lips as she went about her work. People who came to her home said they found themselves with a lap full of beans to string or apples to peel, but they hardly noticed because she was either telling stories or singing ballads. She contributed more songs and ballads to the noted English folksong collector Cecil Sharp than any other singer in the southern mountains. Forty of those songs are found in his book English Folk-Songs from the Southern Appalachians. In this program, Betty Smith tells Jane Gentry’s story, interspersed with ballads, songs, stories, and riddles.