NewsElder Frank Newsome wins NEA National Heritage Fellowship
We announce with great pleasure that The Reverend Frank Newsome, a dear friend of the Virginia Folklife Program, is the recipient of a National Heritage Fellowship, the highest honor that …
Sights & SoundsRemembering Spencer Moore
The Virginia Folklife Program lost a dear friend this June in Spencer Moore, the “singing tobacco farmer” from Chilhowie, Virginia. He was ninety-two. Born into a large family in North …
Sights & SoundsEmily Spencer and Kilby Spencer
The “clawhammer” banjo style is an essential aspect of “old time,” an ensemble-based, hard-driving music form that has inspired dancers across Southern Appalachia for generations. Unlike the more popularized bluegrass …
Sights & SoundsMac Traynham and Robert Browder
While the first European and African settlers of Southern Appalachia carried with them a strong stringed-instrument music tradition, instruments were often difficult to acquire, leading players to be resourceful in …
Sights & SoundsBreaking Up Christmas
When Christmas is over, the fun is just getting started for many in Southern Appalachia. The tradition of “Breaking Up Christmas” is a week-long series of gatherings, where people get …
Sights & SoundsAcoustic Youth
Many of the musicians who perform at fiddler’s conventions and music festivals throughout southern Appalachia are, in fact, young kids. Late in the night, long past their bedtimes, children and …
Sights & SoundsKathy Coleman and Callie McCarty
When the American Folklore Society was established in 1901, a critical part of its stated mission was to document the “oral literature” of the southern Appalachian Mountains, as this region …
Sights & SoundsSandra Bennett and Linda Wright
An appreciation of Appalachian fiber arts has often been hindered by stereotypical images of Appalachia as a poverty-stricken region, where women had to make every article of clothing and bedding …
Sights & SoundsJack and Nannie Branch and John Maeder
There is probably no other traditional food more associated with Southwest Virginia than country ham. Unlike the more commonly known wet-cured ham, which is soaked in brine or injected with …
Sights & SoundsSpencer Moore and Ben Moore Jr.
When the late folklorist Alan Lomax set out on one of his legendary “Southern Journeys” in 1959, he stopped in Chilhowie, Virginia, to record a tobacco farmer named Spencer Moore …
Sights & SoundsLarry Counts and Dee Puckett and Thomas Vail
Broom making has enjoyed a long history in Appalachia and throughout Virginia. Initially, brooms were made primarily as a home craft, and then later became a vibrant cottage industry. Broom …
Sights & SoundsGanell Marshall and Sarah Mullins
A version of corn shuck doll making was likely first introduced to settlers in Southwest Virginia by Native Americans, though it was also a staple craft of early Mission Schools …
