This spring the Great Smoky Mountains Association released a new podcast mini-series, Sepia Tones: Exploring Black Appalachian Music. The series, they write, which is hosted by Drs. William Turner and… Read More →
Features
“The Preacher and The Bear”: Not a Folk Song, But a Song of the Folk
In June 1984, newly hired as a ranger by the National Park Service, I was assigned to work for the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, North Carolina. My vocation… Read More →
To read this article, you’ll need to purchase a subscription. If you already have a subscription, please login here: log in
Rhythm and Genes: The Moonshining and Old-Time Music of Southwest Virginia’s Boyd Family
Jimmy Boyd (photo by Sam Linkous) Jimmy Boyd believes in the power of genetics. “There’s something about us Boyds,” he told me, “that just put rhythm in us. My daddy… Read More →
To read this article, you’ll need to purchase a subscription. If you already have a subscription, please login here: log in
Dark-Natured Songs: The Bare Family Legacy
Lena Bare Turbyfill (photo courtesy of Elizabeth Gwyn) Listening to field recordings can be an experience of intimacy and distance at the same time: intimacy because we hear the unedited… Read More →
To read this article, you’ll need to purchase a subscription. If you already have a subscription, please login here: log in
Attic #22: Bands, Ensembles, Groups, Aggregations
Given the focus of the Old-Time Herald on string band music, it naturally has been appropriate that in most of our visits to the Attic we’ve spent the time looking… Read More →
To read this article, you’ll need to purchase a subscription. If you already have a subscription, please login here: log in
Erwin A. Thompson: The Music Breathed Him
November 9, 1915-March 28, 2015 If you have ever played or heard “John Short’s Tune,” a lively polka, then you have met my father, Erwin A. Thompson. He passed the… Read More →
Attic #21: Fiddle and Guitar
One of the popular, recurring topics of discussion, debate, disagreement, and disputation among fans of old-time music is the question of when guitars began to be used as accompanying instruments… Read More →
To read this article, you’ll need to purchase a subscription. If you already have a subscription, please login here: log in
The Highwoods Moment
Old-time music experienced a great loss in February 2020, with the passing of banjo player Mac Benford. Mac had submitted this essay to the OTH a few months earlier, and… Read More →
Teodar Jackson and African American Fiddling from Texas: Lost Music from the Rural
by Dan Foster Note: This article was written in part to celebrate the release of a new CD of old-time fiddling from the Field Recorders’ Collective, Teodar Jackson with T.… Read More →
To read this article, you’ll need to purchase a subscription. If you already have a subscription, please login here: log in
History the “Great Man” Missed: Critiquing Ken Burns’ “Country Music”
Early Country Music, from the Top Down Before the debut broadcast of Country Music, filmmaker Ken Burns’s paean to American exceptionalism, that popular music genre was beloved among its core… Read More →
Young Old-Time Musicians of North Carolina
The North Carolina Arts Council has recently completed work on its Millennial Traditional Artists Directory, an effort to promote the work of young traditional artists in North Carolina. The project… Read More →
To read this article, you’ll need to purchase a subscription. If you already have a subscription, please login here: log in
Y’all Come: The Ballad of Big Jim Folsom
In March of 1962, a new political season was gearing up in Alabama, and so-called “hillbilly” music was everywhere. “It has gotten so you can’t run for governor in Alabama,”… Read More →
To read this article, you’ll need to purchase a subscription. If you already have a subscription, please login here: log in
Mayo’s the Name, Fiddlin’s the Game: Ralph Mayo
Carter Stanley once referred to old-time fiddle player Leslie Keith as “an unsung hero,” a powerhouse entertainer who, in his day, enjoyed widespread popularity, but with the passing of time… Read More →
To read this article, you’ll need to purchase a subscription. If you already have a subscription, please login here: log in
