Park Foundation Music App

Home > Artists

Judy Domeny

Judy grew up on a farm near Rogersville, Missouri. The fourth of five children, Judy learned early how to weed gardens, pick up rocks from the fields, stack wood, and haul hay. To entertain herself while she worked, she sang folk songs. She sang of broken hearted Barbara Allen, English kings and queens, cowboys and Indians. She sang of Civil War battles, sailing ships, train wrecks, and murders. She sang to her pony on long trail rides and to the cows as she helped pen them. Fascinated by the stories within the songs, she developed a repertoire of hundreds of Ozark folk songs. The majority of Judy’s traditional folksong repertoire comes from the Ozark song collections of Max Hunter and Vance Randolph. Some of the songs date back to fourteenth century England, but most of her selections date from the early 1800s to the early 1900s.