Sights & SoundsCheryl Marcia Maroney and Robinette D. Cross
Many forms of traditional music in Virginia have risen from the church, and the Apprenticeship Program has featured many different styles of gospel singing, including Tidewater gospel singing, Old Regular …
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 & SoundsFrancisca Ramirez Acosta and Laura Ortiz
The word mole can refer to any of a number of richly flavored sauces traditionally used in Mexican cuisine, or to dishes based on these sauces. Varieties of mole include …
Sights & SoundsJim King and Jackson Cunningham
Beekeeping is the care of honeybee colonies, commonly in hives, to stimulate crop pollination and to ensure the production of honey and other hive products, including beeswax, propolis, and royal …
Sights & SoundsBuddy Pendleton and Aila Wildman
Buddy Pendleton is one of the true pioneers of bluegrass fiddling, having performed as a young man with Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys. In the 1970s, Buddy won the …
Sights & SoundsFlory Jagoda and Aviva Chernick
Flory Jagoda was born in 1925 in Sarajevo, Bosnia, and was raised in the city’s Sephardic Jewish community. When the Sephardic Jews were forced into exile from Spain and Portugal …
Sights & SoundsWallace Gusler and Bruce Larson
The importation and manufacturing of firearms have been part of Virginia’s history since European settlement. The first documented firearms brought to Virginia in 1607 were muskets equipped with matchlocks, snaphances, …
Sights & SoundsHarold Mitchell and Dale Morris
If you have attended the Galax Old Fiddler’s Convention any time in the last forty years, you will quickly recognize the familiar voice of Galax native Harold Mitchell. Always impeccably …
Sights & SoundsGarrett Queen and Lana Lambert
Prior to the advent of photocopiers, short run quick print, email, and “social media,” the local letterpress (job-shop) was the primary producer of the vast majority of materials for mass …
Sights & SoundsWalter Messick and Chris Testerman
The hills of Grayson County, encompassing the small mountain communities around Mt. Rogers, are a veritable hotbed of luthiers—builders of fretted, stringed instruments. Some of America’s finest guitars, mandolins, fiddles, …
Sights & SoundsJessica Canaday Stewart and Vanessa Adkins
The Chickahominy Tribe, currently the second largest tribe in Virginia, is based primarily in Charles City County. Because of their historic proximity to Jamestown, members of the autonomous Algonquin-speaking Chickahominy …
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 …
