High Hills and Mountains

AMG Review of High Hills and Mountains

Bruce Eder
All Music Guide

Jean Ritchie ranges far and wide on this collection of tunes, reaching back to the start of her recording career 40-some years before on one cut ("The Cuckoo") -- according to her own annotation, the main reason was to get the title track, an unrecorded original, on record, and in the process to deliver an extant CD of material with which she had been associated for 50 years or more. The result is part personal retrospective and part best-of, but is in no way self-indulgent -- in her seventh decade at the time, she still sings beautifully on these recordings, and the playing is beyond reproach.