Josiah H. Combs, Knott County Kentucky Musicologist

Josiah H. Combs was born in Perry County Kentucky and grew up at Hindman in Knott County Kentucky where he was the first graduate of the Hindman Settlement School. He graduated from Transylvania University and obtained a doctoral degree from the Sorbonne in Paris. He was one of the most important collectors of folk songs in America and his book, “Folk Songs of the Southern United States” (University of Texas Press) is considered a classic in the field. The book is based on his doctoral dissertation at the Sorbonne and was originally published in French in Paris. He also published “A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk Songs” which contained more than 300 songs collected in Eastern and Central Kentucky. Dr. Combs's publications include “The Kentucky Highlanders” (Lexington, Kentucky, I912), “All That's Kentucky” (Louisville, Kentucky, I9I5), and “Folk Songs from the Kentucky Highlands” (New York, 1935), as well as textbooks and contributions to the “Journal of American Folklore”, “Books Abroad”, “Folk-Say”, and the “Kentucky Folklore Record”. Much of his important work remains in manuscript, including "The Language of Our Southern Highlanders." Josiah H. Combs’ is one of the four great writers and educators whose lives are detailed in the recent Loyal Jones book “My Curious and Jocular Heroes”. Josiah H. Combs was an important professor of foreign languages (French, Spanish, German) and a first rate linguist. He was a friend to H. L. Mencken who was very laudatory of his writings in “Dialect Notes”, “American Speech”, “Publications of the American Dialect Society”, and “Publications of the Modern Language Association”. He collected and preserved folk songs in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Texas. Many of his documented versions of American folk songs are either the only versions ever preserved or considered to be the most accurate. They often contain language variants which are more correctly and accurately preserved than those of lesser scholars and writers. He taught foreign languages at Texas Christian University, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Virginia. Many, if not most of his papers, are preserved in the Special Collections Department of the Berea College Library. While Josiah H. Combs’ literary work may not be well known in today’s literary world, he is one of the most important figures in the voluminous body of literature which is rooted in Knott County Kentucky and his published works are among the most respected in his fields of specialty. I have a major problem with the computer language on this blogspot website and I can't seem to get it corrected. My last few posts have had major errors in them which I can't seem to edit away. I apologize and I am working to correct it. When the problem has been addressed, I will re-edit the previous several posts. Keep coming back and thanks for reading my blog!