Richmond On The James - Tim Eriksen

I've been singing this song since the late 1980s and have recorded it many times but never put it out anywhere. I shared it with Alison Krauss around 2012 and she recorded a lovely version for her new record, so I thought I'd take it as an opportunity to finally make a little video.

I learned this one, like many others, from a 1950s recording of Lena Bourne Fish of East Jaffrey, New Hampshire made by Anne and Frank Warner. In 1989 I signed up for a folklore class taught by folklorist Peter Kennedy at the main library in Gloucester, England. Nobody else showed up, so we just went busking and hung out. He was a friend of the Warners, and after Frank's death, he told me, Anne had shared their "field recordings" with him, and given him permission to make cassette copies for anyone who was interested. He said I was the first person who ever asked. I imagine there would be more interest these days.

We shouldn't be surprised that an old Yankee woman was singing this song nearly 100 years after the war. It's a good song.