Almeda Riddle
American singer
Almeda Riddle (November 21, 1898 – June 30, 1986) was an American folk singer. She collected and sang traditional ballads throughout her life, usually unaccompanied. Some of Riddle's songs range back to 17th-century Ireland, England, and Scotland. Introduced to a wider public by folklorist John Quincy Wolf and musicologist Alan Lomax, Riddle recorded extensively, and she knew somewhere between 500 and 600 songs. In her old age, she was often known as Granny Riddle.
Early life
Born Almeda James and raised in Cleburne County, Arkansas, she learned music from her father, a fiddler and teacher of shape note singing. "He made us learn the round note, but the shape notes are quicker read," Riddle said of her father. "We learned both the four and the eight note system. And anything I know the tune to".
She was a first cousin twice removed of the outlaws Frank and Jesse James.
The public source identifies “Almeda Riddle” as american singer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Almeda, Riddle and American.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4733741. VIAF identifies the subject as 2675329. The Library of Congress control number is n86102640. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1898 and 1986.
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This entry incorporates text from “Almeda Riddle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.