Michael E. "Jim" Bush

I suppose it makes sense that a collection of old folk songs should be a throwback.

This is, as the title says, a collection of West Virginia folk songs, collected and assembled by Michael E. Bush. Over the course of a decade, he put out five volumes, each of about a hundred pages, so collectively they are a pretty good resource although the individual volumes are fairly slim. And the songs are generally of good quality -- although, because many collectors have visited West Virginia, most of the songs exist in other versions, indeed, often in other versions from quite nearby where Bush found his versions.

The notes properly document where and when the song was collected. Otherwise, they aren't of much value; Bush only occasionally gives background on the songs, and mentions other versions only intermittently, often listing only a bare handful of the many versions of the song. You'll need a more high-powered reference to really learn about the songs themselves.

But the real oddity is the presentations of the songs. These are hand-written volumes. Not typeset, not even typed; they're in longhand. It's a fairly legible hand, written cleanly, but still, this is a photocopy of hand manuscripts. It's not easy to read at any distance. The staff notation (typically in shape-note notation, which is a nice plus) is also quite squint-worthy.

So this probably isn't the first book of West Virginia folk songs you'll want to pick up; John Harrington Cox's Folk Songs of the South surely comes first, and perhaps some others. But if you have Cox, and Boette, and the rest, and still want more, this will be a useful addition. As long as your eyesight is pretty good, anyway.… (mere)