I Wonder as I Wander: The Life of John Jacob Niles

Chapter 12. Dean of American Balladeers

12 Dean of American Balladeers Life was simultaneously very ordinary yet also very extraordinary for the Niles family. Domestic life was rather ordinary as Rena and John Jacob were occupied with raising a “baby boomer” family during the prosperous postwar Truman-Eisenhower years. But Niles’s flourishing career created an extraordinary lifestyle: the household had to adjust to his frequent absences from home and accommodate his creative lifestyle when he was present. Rena’s diary entry of March 27, 1939, communicates the welter of excitement and activity that was typical of daily Boot Hill life. The foal is a filly . . . and the mare was as mean as could be during the process . . . nearly killed the foal. . . . The cat also had kittens. . . . We find this all out when we go out there in the morning on the way from our farm. . . . Our own house is coming along very nicely, if we can keep those men from scratching up the floors. . . . Home to lunch and at 3, JJN has to meet some photographers in the shop to let them take his pictures for Hoagland and Country Life—she is still fiddling with that. . . . Then they return and take more pictures here—a Miss Thomas and his sister of Spengler Studios . . . both very buxom et al. . . . The man comes to get my fur coats, Frances Jewell calls to find out if JJN will sing for the preachers, but it seems that it has to be done on April 20th, when he is to be in Danville. . . . The telephone rings like mad, etc.1 230 I Wonder as I Wander John Jacob Niles was constantly on the go. The National Concert and Artists Corporation scheduled tours that lasted for weeks at a time, with performances and two-week campus residencies at a host of college venues —from Harvard to UCLA, from the Juilliard to Eastman—and at museums such as the National Gallery of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art.2 The recording projects in New York City, first with Victor, subsequently with Moses Asch’s Disc label, and finally on the Clancy Brothers’ Tradition label, drew him to the New York halls and studios to document his repertoire. Residencies at institutes and conferences, such as the Indiana University Folklore Institute and the annual Music Teachers National Association meeting, provided opportunities for scholarly exchange.3 In between times, Niles briefly touched down at Boot Hill Farm to tend his farm, his family, and his musical composition. Life was passing by in a whirlwind of activity. By the time the 1950s were over, Niles had turned sixty-seven years old and had seen himself become the “dean of American balladeers.”4 While the concerts continued in an unbroken parade of passing halls and auditoriums, several performances stood out in stark relief above the mundane.5 On October 5, 1946, Niles made his debut at New York City’s Town Hall. Located at 123 West Forty-third Street, on Manhattan’s west side, this wonderful old venue, built as a democratic meeting space for the suffragette League for Political Education, opened on January 12, 1921. Ever since, it has served continuously as a premier concert facility for a diverse range of performance styles. In keeping with Niles’s recent status as a Victor Red Seal artist, he was in the company of classical musicians, such as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Lily Pons, Fedor Chaliapin, and others who had once graced this stage. It had been fourteen years since Niles had performed in New York City, though, and his return to the city where he had once lived must have been daunting. The stage—fifty feet wide, twenty-five feet tall, and just over twenty feet deep—could swallow up a single lonely performer. The storied history of the hall would surely also prove intimidating. But perhaps even more frightening was the nature of the event itself. Niles’s performance was an experiment, being scheduled as the debut of a new series billed as “Music at Midnight.” Producer Ted Zittel hoped that the late hour might draw a different audience, but no one had any idea who might be in the Dean of American Balladeers 231 seats when Niles walked out on stage. Fortunately, it was an enthusiastic audience of nine hundred young folks welcoming Niles back to Manhattan . The New York Times review described Niles’s performance style, focusing on his eccentric but effective vocal...