Shankar Vedantam

After nearly two decades of painstaking work came the final indignity.

Rejection.

Yeah, I think he was an early casualty, you might say, of the switch from published books, that is, paper books, to computer documentation.

And he's aware of this, I mean, because he talks about how it would be great if he could put this into a computer.

Would you say that Riley Shepard was a genius?

He was a genius, I think.

I mean, it's very impressive to see the amount of work that he did on this.

And he also had that sort of crazy perseverance that you have to have.

So, you know, that's a whole other kind of genius.

Here is a really amazing part.

Riley continued to work on the encyclopedia for the next 25 years.

I mean, it is the case that since he would have sent this to the library in 1979, a lot more versions of traditional songs were published.

So if he were trying to keep this book complete, he would have to continue to update it year after year.

One of the interesting things is I'm not sure his family actually fully understands what he has done.

When I spoke with his daughter, Stasia, she just thought her dad was sort of obsessed with this project that never seemed to go anywhere, that never seemed to end, that just grew infinitely.

And, you know, over the years, she, in fact, heard from people whom he had borrowed money from and taken money from.

And, you know, her impression of her dad is not a very positive impression.

And in some ways, speaking with you, I get a different picture of this man.

Well, I think that all scholars, and particularly folk song scholars, have something of the

We would like to spend all our time and all our life immersed in the texts and tunes of folk songs.