John Jacob Niles in 1936

Here’s an Appalachian Christmas carol collected by John Jacob Niles

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Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

“Jesus the Christ is born,” first gathered in 1934 in a little town called Pittman Center, in Sevier County, Tennessee:

Jesus the Christ is born, Give thanks now, every one. 
Rejoice, ye great ones and ye small, God's will, it has been done.

Ye mighty kings of earth, Before the manger bed, 
Cast down, cast down your golden crown From off your royal head.

For in this lowly guise The son of God do sleep, 
And see the Queen of Heaven kneel, Her faithful vigil keep.

Two angels at His head, Two angels at His feet 
Beside His bed the flower red, Perfuming there so sweet.

Jesus the Christ is born, Give thanks now, every one. 
Rejoice, ye great ones and ye small, God's will, hit has been done.
Is this a photo of John Jacob Niles listening to the Tennessee singer of 'Jesus the Christ is born?' We don't know.
Is this a photo of John Jacob Niles listening to the Tennessee singer of ‘Jesus the Christ is born?’ We don’t know. Photographer Doris Ulmann originally captioned it: “J.J. Niles with Appalachian Woman, Holding Notebook and Pencil.” It’s not dated, but we do know Ulmann traveled with Niles to Sevier County in 1934. The photo certainly captures the flavor of Niles at work gathering mountain tunes.

“Niles has been described by scholars and acquaintances as a chameleon,” says Judith Keller in Doris Ulmann, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1996).

“Ten years younger than Doris Ulmann, he was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1892 and grew up on a farm in Jefferson County. His father, a man of many professions, brought folk music of all types into his family’s home; Niles began collecting regional ballads as a teenager.

John Jacob Niles sings, accompanied by piano, in this 1940, 78 rpm recording released as ‘Early American Carols & Folk Songs.’ Kahle/Austin Foundation sponsored the digitization in May, 2020.

“By contrast, he also studied music at the Université de Lyon and the Schola Cantorum in Paris, read poetry for Gertrude Stein’s salon, prepared for a career in opera at the Cincinnati Conservatory, and was performing in the New York theater when Ulmann met him in 1925. From the 1920s on he would publish more than fourteen collections of music and give salon and stage concerts around the world.”

More articles on John Jacob Niles:

Jesus, Jesus, Rest Your Head(Opens in a new browser tab)

I tried to get her to sing all the song(Opens in a new browser tab)

“Folks, we have come to take your picture”(Opens in a new browser tab)

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