Folk music was first collected for publication in William Francis Allen's Slave Songs of the United States (1867). Black spirituals got most of the attention until an Englishman named Cecil Sharp traveled southern Appalachia between 1916 and 1918 collecting folk songs and ballads. Sharp hinted at an exciting (if imaginary) fossilized English folk culture preserved in the mountains (which explains why the public was so dubious about "hillbilly" music when in appeared: it didn't sound at all like "Barbara Allen"). Platoons of collectors have been "catching songs" and folktales ever since. Our sample comes from the spare vocals of Hedy West's "Pretty Saro, available on Topic Records' Pretty Saro and other Appalachian Ballads. (AU Format) (Real Audio Format)