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McGill, Josephine locked

McGill, Josephine locked

  • Barbara L. Tischler

(b Louisville, KY, Oct 20, 1877; d Louisville, KY, Feb 24, 1919). American composer and folksong collector. She had no formal training as a composer. At the suggestion of May Stone of the Hindman Settlement School in Knott County (Kentucky), she spent the summer of 1914 in Knott and Letcher counties transcribing folksongs and tracing their origins to English and Scottish ballads. By her own description the people of the area called her “the strange woman huntin’ song-ballets.” She published Folk-songs of the Kentucky Mountains (1917, repr. 1922, 1926, 1937), in which 13 of the 20 songs are traced to precursors in Child’s English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882–98). At a time when many American composers turned to folk music as the source of a distinctive voice, McGill’s activities contributed to the search for an American national music. Among her own compositions are the songs “Duna, when I was a little lad” (1914), “Less than Clouds,” and “O Sleep.” She also wrote articles for the Musical Quarterly (1917, 1918). (See also Williams, william carlos .)

Bibliography

  • O.A. Rothbert: “Josephine McGill—Pioneer in the Kentucky Ballad Field,” Filson Club History Quarterly, vol.5/3 (Louisville, KY, 1928), 28