Despite her name, Texas Smith’s family had been in the commonwealth for seven generations when she was born in 1895 in Saltville — a town in Southwest Virginia about 20 miles from Abingdon.
As a child, Texas was part of a family that entertained itself with music. And by the time she married Jim Gladden and moved to Roanoke County, she’d begun collecting songs that had been transmitted orally across generations. It’s possible that Gladden — the focus of a recent Encyclopedia Virginia discussion — would have gone about raising her family without recording a single note, if it hadn’t been for Alfreda Peel.
“I found my wonderful Tex Gladden way out in the county in a hovel with eight children,” wrote Peel, who in 1916 met the singer while collecting traditional ballads for the Virginia Folklore Society. “She is a real pauper but the best singer you ever heard, intelligent and not at all bashful.”
Gladden made a batch of recordings for the folklore society in 1932, leading to several sessions with producer Alan Lomax that ran through 1959. The singer told him that she hadn’t pursued music professionally because “[w]hen you bring up nine, you have your hands full. All I could sing was lullabies.”
Independent scholar Aldona Dye, who took part in the Encyclopedia Virginia chat, said Gladden’s interpretations of traditional ballads remain resonant today.
“Her style of singing — and just her as a singer — is held up as the example of what Virginia ballad singing sounds like,” Dye said, discussing Gladden’s vocal embellishments. “She's got a big legacy.”
Lomax visited Virginia a few times over several decades, and invited Gladden and her brother — Hobart Smith, adept at everything from banjo and fiddle to guitar and piano — to New York to record and perform in 1946.
Another session with Lomax included Gladden’s take of “Three Little Babes,” a version that would hold sway over those interpreting the tune in later years. It was part of an expansive songbook she’d developed, encompassing takes on "Gypsy Davy," "The Wreck of the Old '97" and "Barbara Allen."
Gladden, who died in 1966, didn’t record, perform or tour regularly — though she appeared at the White Top Folk Festival throughout the 1930s, as well as the 1938 National Folk Festival in Washington D.C. And while she lived through the mid-century folk revival, Gladden wasn’t swept up in the fervor, despite Joan Baez recording a rendition of a tune associated with the Virginia singer for her 1960 debut.
Some of Gladden’s recordings — including dozens of interview clips — are available as part of the Lomax Digital Archive.