Folk and traditional music and popular songs, with lyrics, MIDI, tune information and history behind the folksongs and ballads. Irish, British and American folk music including Francis J. Child ballads and sea shanties.
If you're interested in the work of Francis J. Child, this site will become addictive. Francis J. Child's five volume work, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882-1898), is considered by many as the "canon" of folk music. Later editions of the work are available from used book dealers (check Barnes & Noble and its network of dealers) but they run several hundred dollars a set. Dover reprinted the work several years ago but it's now out of print. Fortunately, this site provides the words and sequenced MIDI files for about a hundred of the most popular of the Child ballads.
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