One Day

important types of Appalachian music that did not descend directly from English sources, such as hymns, instrumental tunes, and popular songs (Whisnant 1983, 119). Apparently, Sharp did not transfer his zeal for ballads to other areas of Appalachian culture. His outstanding collection of Appalachian ballads is too narrow to be considered as a definitive study of preindustrial Appalachian culture. Despite its flaws, Sharp's work English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians remains the greatest collection of mountain folklore we have. Furthermore, folklorist Bertrand Bronson believes it is the best collection of folklore from any region in the United States (Whisnant 1983, 124). Sharp was, according to Whisnant, "the besttrained , most humane and open-minded collector working in the area at the time" (Whisnant 1983, 124). Like his kinfolks before him, Jim Trantham performs many of the traditional Appalachian ballads that Sharp Ereserved in his book. Because of both is musical training and his commitment to his own heritage, Trantham takes a ballad's notation from the cold page and brings it to life again. Cecil Sharp would have approved: he would never have wanted the ballads he loved and so painstakingly recorded to survive only within the covers of a book. Works Cited Karpeles, Maud. Cecil Sharp: His Life and Work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967. Sharp, Cecil. English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians. Ed. Maud Karpeles. London: Oxford University Press, 1932. Whisnant, David E. All That Is Native and Fine: The Politics of Culture in an American Region. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983. Photo Credits and Captions Photo #1: Historical photo of Cecil Sharp from Maud Karpeles' book Cecil Sharp: His Life and Work (photo is entitled "Cecil Sharp in his last days" and appears on plate VI). Photo taken by Lizzie Caswall Smith. Photo #2: Highway marker on Bridge Street in Hot Springs, North Carolina, informs passersby of the important roles played by Cecil Sharp and Jane Gentry in the preservation of traditional Appalachian ballads. Photo taken by Ted Olson. One Day One day comes to mind, time and again, when you and I walked through pasture and field to the river. Remember the light settling on the dust of the fields and splaying through the sycamores as we climbed the leaning beech and watched red horse shoaling in the flickering waters? —Loyal Jones 26 ...