For the first time in 70 years, Ellen’s legendary folk album Ballads of Careless Love can be heard digitally. Before this, the only way you could listen to these amazing tracks was to find an original copy of the 10” vinyl record. Please consider purchasing the album on Bandcamp to support Ellen! Below, Ellen offers her thoughts on the making of this historic album, and her days as part of the folk-music movement at Cornell University in the 1950s.

Ellen writes:

When I entered Cornell as a freshman in 1953, I had only an inkling I was entering a foreign land. But as the first weeks passed, the inkling became an undeniable certainty: There were all too many rules and mysteries for me to decipher along with my class subjects. I found myself in a hyper-civilized world that was determined to make me into a hyper-civilized alumni in four years. 

As a “savage” from the Folksong Revival, I still didn’t know who Bach was; I didn’t understand why we had to stand up when the Head Resident of our Dormitory entered the dining hall, or why we had a dress code for dinner. I’d never fancied “gracious living,” the lifestyle we were supposedly practicing, and I resented having a curfew. It. was the 1950s, a time when dorms were segregated, panty raids were common, and women students were locked up every night and let out early in the morning for classes.

I was “a stranger in a strange land”—but I had my guitar, and I had cut my first album almost a year prior to setting foot in the hills above Cayuga’s waters. (This was Ozark Mountain Folk Songs, released in 1955 on Stinson Records, the Greenwich Village folk label which is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.)

When classes began, I sought out the professor who taught folksong, Professor Harold Thompson, a respected folklorist and specialist in Scottish Literature. His former assistant had left Cornell the previous year with a PhD in hand. To my surprise, with only the credentials of my freshman enthusiasm and having already made an LP of folksongs, I was offered the job of being Harold Thompson’s “graduate” assistant beginning my sophomore year. I readily accepted.

 Professor Thompson had recently suffered a stroke, so it was my task not only to personally illustrate the ballads and songs he was discussing but also to serve as a sort of disc jockey and Girl Friday for the course. Little did I know when I took the position that it would also be the beginning of my life’s work in folklore.

Had Dr. Thompson not been sidelined by his health, I never would have been sent halfway across New York State to meet and collected songs from a gruff ex-lumberjack. That assignment taught me more about the value of traditional art and knowledge than any class I took in college. As “Fuzzy,” that ex-lumberjack, said to me, emphatically and with mock incredulity when I asked about the mention of a “peavey” in one of his songs: “You don’t know what a peavey is?! (Loud, short laugh)…and you up to college?! Well, when you’re through up there come down here and stay a while and you’ll commence to know something!” (To spare you the trip to the dictionary: A peavey is a logging tool consisting of a wooden pole with a metal spike or hook on the end.)

And so, through a series of coincidences I never could have planned, I found myself the fortunate victim of accidental events: I was an undergraduate “graduate” assistant in the folksong classes of professor Harold Thompson.

 I don’t recall how the idea came to me, but during my sophomore year I decided it would be interesting to have a radio show that featured folksongs. It took a bit of time and wading through permissions and red tape, but eventually I got the program. I hosted it for two years at Cornell on the university station, WVBR. It was after one of my programs that an engineer from the radio staff asked if I would like to make a recording. He was with the short-lived “Cornell Recording Society,” an informal group that worked with the station. Professor Thompson’s assistant before me, Dan Isaacson, had made a record with them, and since I was disappointed with the record I had cut before I arrived at Cornell, I quickly accepted the invitation.

And so I recorded the album Careless Love. We recorded it in the radio station studio, with my friends looking in through the heavy panes of glass from the control room. I was pleased with it. My classmate, Howard Mitchell, took the photos for the album cover… wonderful photos! Howie was in Engineering at Cornell, and he was a true friend and a fine photographer. He and a number of his cohorts were fellow folksingers from what was by then a significant following of students and faculty on campus. By popular demand I had begun leading group sings every Sunday evening in the basement of one of the women’s dorms. 

 Those weekly sings were a great success. But these were the years of the “Red Scares,” the McCarthy years, and there were occasional interruptions. One Sunday evening during our sing, a large man in a trench coat, followed by other large men in trench coats, burst into the room, proclaiming, “We know what you are doing!” We watched in stunned silence while they continued … warning us to behave ourselves. Which we continued to do… just as we were doing before they entered. It was a non-event.

In general, my years at Cornell were good. The recording of Careless Love turned out well, and I regarded it as something akin to the diploma I received for surviving four years at the university. I was not locked out of Cornell during those McCarthy years. Our greatest “subversive act” was singing songs that were part of our heritage and which protested things that were not. Actually, we were a tame group; a few years behind us were Peter Yarrow and Richard Fariña.

Robert Heinlein’s book Strangers in a Strange Land came out in 1961, not too long after 1957 when we graduated. Even Heinlein knew that strangers are difficult to spot at times. We were not the subversives that HUAC might have thought folksingers were. We were good students, good people, and we certainly had the ability to think critically—wasn’t that what college was all about? We were singers of folksongs, out there in plain view, doing nothing wrong, living our lives and singing our songs—like the children in Russell Hoban's science-fiction novel Riddley Walker.

My official diploma was earned and served me well to continue my career as a folklorist. I had received a fine education there and finally knew who Bach was. Careless Love, my “ersatz” diploma that I took great pride in, never hit the charts or received much attention. But I was busy with graduate school, not minding its relative obscurity. However, it is still with us. And through the skill, patience and devotion to folksong of Ross Wylde, I offer it to you now, fresh off the old turntable with Ross’ remastering.

 May we survive these times as we did in the past.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — April 8, 2026 — Seven decades after its original pressing, folklorist and musician Ellen Stekert’s 1956 album Ballads of Careless Love is set to make its digital debut. The meticulously restored album will be available on all major streaming platforms on April 17.

The album’s launch follows the release of two preview singles: “The Little Sparrow,” which debuted on April 3, and the title track, “Careless Love,” on April 10.

Restored by producer Ross Wylde, the re-release brings a vital piece of the American Folksong Revival into the modern era. Prior to meeting Stekert, Wylde had heard her music through a YouTube upload of her track “Dink’s Song.” Wanting to hear more, he realized the album was entirely out of print and only accessible via original vinyl records.

When Wylde and Stekert eventually connected and began collaborating, restoring the 1956 record became a priority. After a fruitless search for the original master tapes, Wylde sourced a clean vinyl copy to serve as the foundation for an AI-assisted remaster.

“Removing the crackle proved difficult, even with AI, but I think it adds a very unique and authentic sound to the songs,” Wylde explains. “It reminds me how great media can so easily be lost to time, if not for archiving, collaboration, and technology.”

A “Stranger in a Strange Land”

The bulk of Ballads of Careless Love is deeply tied to Stekert’s formative years at Cornell University. Entering the school in 1953, she describes herself as a “savage from the Folksong Revival” navigating a hyper-civilized, rigid 1950s academic world of dress codes, curfews, and segregated dormitories. (To read Ellen’s essay about her Cornell years and the making of the album, see her blog post.)

Armed with a guitar and an unwavering passion for traditional music, Stekert found her footing by seeking out Professor Harold Thompson, a respected folklorist. Her enthusiasm landed her a job as his undergraduate “graduate” assistant, a role that sparked her life’s work in folklore and sent her across New York State to collect songs from traditional singers such as Fuzzy Barhight, an ex-lumberjack.

During her sophomore year, Stekert launched a folk music program on the university radio station, WVBR. Her success on the airwaves led to an invitation from the Cornell Recording Society to cut a record.

The Original Recording

Recorded in the radio station studio with friends watching through the control room glass, the album captures the raw, authentic energy of the era’s folk movement. The record’s iconic cover photography was shot by Stekert’s classmate, Howard Mitchell, capturing the spirit of a growing community of student and faculty folksingers.

This community frequently gathered for Sunday evening group sings led by Stekert. In the midst of the McCarthy-era “Red Scares,” these peaceful gatherings occasionally drew the suspicion of authorities. Stekert recalls an evening when large men in trench coats burst into the room to warn the singers to “behave” themselves.

“Our greatest ‘subversive act’ was singing songs that were part of our heritage and which protested things that were not,” Stekert reflects. “We were out there in plain view, doing nothing wrong, living our lives and singing our songs.”

An “Ersatz Diploma” Restored

While Stekert went on to have a long, successful career as an academic and folklorist, Ballads of Careless Love remained a deeply personal milestone.

“I regarded it as something akin to the diploma I received for surviving four years at the university,” Stekert says. “My LP, my ‘ersatz’ diploma that I took great pride in, never hit the ‘charts’ or received much attention. But I was busy with graduate school, not minding its relative obscurity.”

Now, thanks to modern technology, Stekert’s “diploma” is fresh off the turntable and ready for a new generation of listeners.