Almeda Riddle

Almeda Riddle (November 21, 1898 – June 30, 1986) was an American folk singer. Born and raised in Cleburne County, Arkansas, she learned music from her father, a fiddler and a teacher of shape note singing. She collected and sang traditional ballads throughout her life, usually unaccompanied. Introduced to a wider public by folklorist John Quincy Wolf and musicologist Alan Lomax, Riddle recorded extensively, and claimed to be able to perform over 500 songs. She was often known as Granny Riddle.In October 1959, on Wolf's recommendation, Lomax and Shirley Collins recorded Riddle at her home in Heber Springs in The Ozarks. The 23 songs reflected Lomax's interest in traditional ballads and songs for children. Collins recalls: She was a singer of such composure and quiet intensity, that you were compelled to listen. .... There was such clarity in her style, and she had that rare and admirable quality of serving the songs, rather than the songs serving her.Children's songs from this session were issued on American Folk Songs For Children in the Atlantic Records' Southern Folk Heritage series of LPs and was reissued as the Atlantic Records box set Southern Folk Heritage. Several ballads were issued on various albums in the Prestige Records Southern Journey series of LPs, and reissued on several CDs in the Rounder Records series Southern Journey: The Alan Lomax Collection. These records made Almeda Riddle widely known to devotees of the American folk music revival. She made studio recordings for Rounder Records, which were issued on two solo LPs. From 1962 she was free to accept invitations to perform at folk festivals and college campuses. She toured extensively for twenty years until prevented by ill health. In December 1984 she moved into a nursing home in Heber Springs, where she died on June 30, 1986. She is buried next to her husband at Shiloh Cross Roads Cemetery.Riddle was a recipient of a 1983 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.In 1984 she was filmed by George West for Folkstreams. In the film titled Almeda Riddle: Now Let's Talk About Singing (released in 1985), she sings and speaks about her life and songs. She also co-authored with folklorist Roger D. Abrahams an autobiography titled A Singer and Her Songs that included many of her songs.The introduction to the 1997 cult film Gummo features Riddle's rendition of "I Love My Rooster."