I've Got a Mother Gone to Glory (trad; Roud 4213) Week 230, 11 August 2025

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Continuing this month's theme of songs of Jean Ritchie. I've done a few of her songs in the past, but there are many others and I want to recognise her importance by dedicating a month to her - I've created a 'Jean Ritchie songs' playlist for songs of hers I've done (sometimes learnt direct from her recordings or books but often from others who have taken up her songs).
Jean Ritchie was unusual in being both a tradition bearer herself, coming from a noted family of singers - Cecil Sharp collected songs from two of her older sisters in 1917 - and also a key figure in the folk revival of the 1950s & 1960s. She also spent time collecting folk music in the United States and in Britain and Ireland.

"I've Got a Mother Gone to Glory"* I only heard for the first time earlier this year, but immediately fell in love with. I'd had the vague wish to find more songs of similar type to ones like "Bright Morning Stars" and Maria's Gone" and this is one such - so if you like them, I'll think you'll like this. Like them, there's only one new line in each verse, so it's a great one for people to join in with even if they've never heard it before. Again like "Bright Morning Stars" (or "The Old Churchyard" and more), it's one of those folk songs that I think of being a 'comforting song about death' - someone has died, but they have gone to a better place and you will meet them again in time.
* aka "The Other Bright Shore", "The Other Shore", etc

There are only 113 Roud Index entries for Roud 4213, and that includes several similar but distinct songs, so "I've Got a Mother Gone to Glory" itself seems to be quite rare, even in its American homeland. I have not (so far) heard it sung by anyone else in the UK (nor is it listed on the Mainly Norfolk website (generally pretty comprehensive for folk songs recorded by UK folk artists)).

A version as "The Other Shore" appears in John & Alan Lomax's "American Ballads And Folk Songs" (1934), p. 572, where they note:
""Calling the mourners" song widely sung at "brush arbor" camp meetings by Texas circuit riders about 50 years ago.”

I learnt this song mainly from the from the singing of Starry Mountain Singers, who sang this on the 2014 tribute album “Dear Jean: Artists Celebrate Jean Ritchie”. I also referred to Jean Ritchie's songbook "Folk Songs Of The Southern Appalachians", which has this song in - there Jean gives the three verses for 'mother' (I've got a mother gone to Glory..., Some bright day..., That bright day... and notes that the "same verses may be repeated for father, sister, brother, etc". I have sung the three verses twice, once with mother and then once with father.

For more notes see:
https://balladindex.org/Ballads/R611.html

Wikipedia on Jean Ritchie:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Ritchie