Jean Redpath MBE (28 April 1937 – 21 August 2014) Scotland, and later returned to Edinburgh, taking medieval studies at the University of Edinburgh. To help pay her way through her studies, she sang for beer money and undertook part-time work as a driving instructor and undertaker's assistant.
The Scottish poet and folk-song collector Hamish Henderson was working in the School of Scottish Studies at the university and Redpath took a keen interest in the archive of tapes and discs of music and songs. She learned about 400 songs, together with the oral folklore that went with them. In March 1961, at the age of 24, she arrived in the United States with just eleven dollars in her pocket. Her first performance was in San Francisco. Later she met up with Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Bob Dylan in Greenwich Village. The natural warmth and power of her voice brought her to perform at Gerde's Folk City.
Starting in 1979, Redpath was a lecturer at the University of Stirling, Scotland, with occasional trips to teach at Wesleyan University. She gave courses for ten years in Scottish Song at the Heritage of Scotland Summer School at the University of Stirling.
She was awarded the MBE in 1987, as well as being named a Kentucky colonel by the Governor of Kentucky. Redpath also received honorary doctorates from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, University of Stirling and the University of St Andrews, and was inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame in 2008. In 1996, she launched the Burns International Festival.
In 2009, Redpath made an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, singing "Some Kind of Love" by the late John Stewart of The Kingston Trio. Letterman promoted her album By Request during her appearance, although the song "Some Kind of Love" does not appear on that album. This led to some confusion for viewers who wished to obtain a recorded version of the song.
In 2011, she returned to her alma mater to become artist-in-residence at the University of Edinburgh’s Department of Celtic and Scottish Studies.
Death and legacy
Redpath died from cancer on 21 August 2014 at a hospice in Tucson, Arizona.
In the town where Redpath was raised, Leven in Fife, there is a street named in her honour: Jean Redpath Wynd.
Discography
- Skipping Barefoot Through the Heather (1962) Prestige PR 13020
- Scottish Ballad Book (1962) Elektra EKL 214