More on Hedy West

I grew up with a big Folkways Collection of records that made a big impact on me and brought me inexorably to the banjo and the clawhammer style years later in my adult life. The collection included Hedy West singing Cotton Mill Girls, a song and a style that stood out with clarity, simplicity and beauty from what was already an impressive collection. I learned the song pretty much by osmosis and later played it on the banjo, straight-up frailing.

Then later, for awhile, I had an instruction book by Ken Perlman called Melodic Clawhammer Style banjo. There were contributions by various banjo players in there along with their pictures. But there was also a great pic of Hedy West without any accompanying tab. I always figured he included the photo because she was so beautiful, though I always wondered whether there'd been a tab that got cut out in the editing process.

Those were the only two things I knew about Hedy West. I used to sing Cotton Mill Girls all the time, with Brendan Wall and Anne Lederman, as part of the pre-show warm-up to our outdoor extravaganza on the life of the Donnellys that we did in Blyth. Like many people, I assumed that I had learned this song from Hedy West but that she had not written it. I assumed it was traditional. But it wasn't. She'd written it. It was her song.

That's the best I can do for an appreciation. Wish I could do better.