Child Ballads - Modern Folk Adaptations

Modern Folk Adaptations

Many Child Ballads remain a live part of contemporary folk culture. British electric folk groups such as Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span drew heavily on the Child Ballads in their repertoires, and many other recording artists have recorded individual ballads. Harry Smith included a number of them into his Anthology of American Folk Music.

The ballads figure prominently in the early recordings of Joan Baez; they crop up even in the work of bands not usually associated with folk material, such as Ween's recording of "The Unquiet Grave" (Child 78) under the title "Cold Blows the Wind", or versions of "Barbara Allen" (Child 84) recorded by the Everly Brothers, Pete Seeger, Art Garfunkel, and (on the soundtrack of the 2004 film A Love Song for Bobby Long) John Travolta. In 2009, Fleet Foxes included "The Fause Knight Upon the Road" as the b-side to the 7" release of "Mykonos" (as "False Knight on the Road").

In Peter Beagle's novel The Last Unicorn, the character Captain Cully, a robber chief, sets out to make himself another Robin Hood by immortalizing himself in ballads. He misidentifies another character as "Mr. Child" and tries to get him to collect the songs, and tells him that writing them himself is legitimate.

In 1960 John Jacob Niles published The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles, in which he connects folk songs which he collected throughout the southern United States and Appalachia in the early 20th century to the Child Ballads. Many of the songs he published were revived in the Folk music revival, for example "The Riddle Song" ("I gave my love a Cherry"), which he connects with Child No. 1, "Riddles Wisely Expounded".