EventReal Folk: Passing on Trades and Traditions of the Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program – Exhibition
The Birthplace of Country Music Museum reopened to the public June 11. Since 2002, the Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program at Virginia Humanities has brought together more than 130 experienced master …
Sights & SoundsReal Folk: Passing on Trades and Traditions of the Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program
Watch the 5-episode virtual tour: Since 2002, the Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program at Virginia Humanities has brought together more than 150 experienced master artists and eager apprentices, ensuring various art …
NewsIn Gratitude: Roddy Moore
The Virginia Folklife Program at Virginia Humanities would like to express our deep gratitude to Roddy Moore, recently retired director of the Blue Ridge Institute and Museum at Ferrum College …
Sights & SoundsRemembering Helen White
The Virginia Folklife Program is deeply shocked and saddened at the news of the passing of our good friend Helen White. Helen channeled her tireless passion for the music and …
Sights & SoundsFrank Newsome: Gone Away with a Friend (Free Dirt Records)
On Gone Away with a Friend, Frank Newsome sings a more than four-century-long American tradition into the present. His arresting style—the lined-out hymn singing of the Old Regular Baptists from …
NewsFrank Newsome’s Gone Away with a Friend released by Free Dirt Records
Free Dirt Records is releasing National Heritage Fellow Reverend Frank Newsome’s album Gone Away with a Friend on June 29, 2018. Virginia State Folklorist Jon Lohman and renowned country artist …
NewsGet Ready: The Blue Ridge Folk Festival at Ferrum College
The Blue Ridge Folk Festival returns to Ferrum College Sat., Oct. 28th, and it’s is as authentic as it gets.
Sights & SoundsKay Justice and Helen White
There is perhaps nowhere in America with a deeper or more widely recognized ballad tradition than Southern Appalachia. The region has been a draw for ballad scholars (sometimes referred to …
Sights & SoundsJim Bordwine and Baron Bordwine
Nestled in the southern Appalachian Mountains, Saltville is named for its unusually high number of salt marshes, or, as locals call them, salt licks. Saltville’s natural salt deposits have influenced …
Sights & SoundsFrank Newsome: Gone Away with a Friend
A few years back at his Hills of Home Festival in Coeburn, Virginia, Ralph Stanley brought out a special guest during his set that he and his wife Jimmie wanted us to hear. There, alone on that stage, Frank Newsome sang “Gone Away With a Friend.” I’m sure there were many others like me who were riveted and had a profound experience. On many levels it was one of the most powerful, spiritual, mournful, emotional, beautiful, and hopeful things I have ever heard. There is a purity about Frank’s singing that brings a soul-stirring, heart-tugging peacefulness that is beyond words.
Sights & SoundsDanny Wingate and Sam Linkous
Appalachia, a region that includes Southwest Virginia, could arguably be called America’s first frontier. As early as the eighteenth century, European settlements began to expand west, with many colonists making …
Sights & SoundsJimmy Boyd and Jared Boyd
The “clawhammer” banjo style is an essential aspect of “old time,” an ensemble-based, hard-driving music form which has inspired dancers across Southern Appalachia for generations. Unlike the more popularized bluegrass …
