Music for the Motherless Child is a collaboration album between English folk guitarist Martin Simpson and Chinese pipa player Wu Man, released by Water Lily Records in 1996.

[2][4] The genesis of Music for the Motherless Child came from Tamil producer Kavichandran Alexander for his record label Water Lily Acoustics.

[6] In a review of the album, Musicworks described the scenario: "Water Lily Acoustics had a great idea: put a few musicians from different cultures together in a room, turn on a DAT recorder, and see what transpires.

"[7] The first album on the label, A Meeting by the River (1993) by Ry Cooder and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, won Alexander a Grammy Award.

In a run-down of the label's catalogue, he writes: "English guitarist Martin Simpson is known for having successfully synthesized a style that blends the best of the finger picking traditions of the British Isles and Appalachia.

[12] Music for the Motherless Child fuses Simpson's folk blues-style guitar work with Man's exotica pipa playing, creating what Tim Sheridan of AllMusic describes as "a most unusual sonic world, a place where East meets West and the blues reign supreme.

"[14] With the exception of "A-Minor Blues", which was composed by Simpson, the material on the album is traditional,[12] and mainly draws from American and European folk music.

The album's arrangement of the piece is said to "[blur] the line between bluegrass and Chinese folk," given that, throughout the track, the pipa and guitar parts constantly switch.

"[14] Reviewing Music for the Motherless Child for the NPR series All Things Considered, writer Banning Eyre described the album as "lovely.