Shep Ginandes

Shepard Coleman "Shep" Ginandes (born June 7, 1928) is an American medical practitioner, folk singer and song collector.

Life and career Ginandes was born in New York City and was educated at Harvard Medical School, graduating in 1951. During the early 1950s, he worked as a US Army doctor, and traveled the world picking up folk songs, which he began performing in Boston. His repertoire included songs in a wide range of languages including Welsh, French, German and Russian.

His first recordings, Songs Of Delinquency, were issued in 1952 on George Wein's Storyville label, and included a version of "Willie the Weeper", later covered by Dave Van Ronk. He released a further set of recordings on Elektra, Shep Ginandes Sings Folksongs, in 1958; the album included one of the earliest recordings of the traditional English folk song "Mattie Groves". The 1958 recordings were apparently produced by Ginandes himself, and Tom Lehrer later credited Ginandes with advice on recording his own material. In 1961, Ginandes released Dogwood Soup: Folksongs for Children on the Pathways of Sound label. He later practised in Honolulu, Hawaii. His registration allowing him to prescribe controlled substances was revoked in 2010 after he was convicted of distributing drugs including methadone and morphine not for a legitimate medical purpose.