Sights & SoundsThe (Real) Most Interesting Man in the World: Remembering Bob Cage
The sad news of the passing of our dear friend Bob Cage, at 91, brings me back to the first moment I pulled up to Bob’s property in South Boston, …
Sights & SoundsLive in Concert: 2014 Highlights
As we approach the end of the Virginia Folklife Program’s 25th year, we take great joy in looking back at some of the year’s highlights. Largely through the addition of …
Sights & SoundsRichmond Folk Festival: Tenth Year Rocks Again
More than 150,000 people joined the Virginia Folklife Program on the banks of the James River from October 10-12 for the tenth annual Richmond Folk Festival. This year’s festival provided …
Sights & SoundsApprenticeships Merge: Dale Wise restores Flory Jagoda’s accordion
Flory Jagoda, a master artist of the Sephardic ballad tradition, escaped from Bosnia in 1941. Her only possession was her Hohner Student III accordion. More than seventy years later, Dale …
Sights & SoundsApprenticeship Showcase: scenes from the day
The Virginia Folklife Program celebrated its eleventh annual Apprenticeship Showcase on September 21. It was a beautiful day of music, crafts, and food, and we thank those who came out …
Sights & SoundsLive Stream-2014 Apprenticeship Showcase
We’re pleased to announce that the Apprenticeship Showcase was live streamed for the first time this year. Watch the fun:
Sights & SoundsFrances Davis’s Fried Apple Pies: A Culinary Artform
The Folklife Showcase is thrilled to welcome back our favorite fried apple pie makers, Frances Davis and her sister, Annie James. They will be back at the friers making their …
Sights & SoundsMaggie Ingram: Live in Richmond
Evangelist Maggie Lee Ingram is unquestionably the “Gospel Queen” of Richmond, Virginia. Along with her family group, the Ingramettes, Maggie has delighted Richmond audiences for more than fifty years. Along the way, she has performed at such illustrious stages as the Kennedy Center and the National Folk Festival. In 2009 Maggie received the Virginia Heritage Award for a lifetime of excellence in the folk and traditional arts.
Sights & SoundsThe Paschall Brothers: Songs for Our Fathers
Hampton Roads, the growing metropolitan region at the convergence of the James River, Atlantic Ocean, and the Chesapeake Bay, has long been one of our country’s most musically fertile regions, producing world-class performers in a broad range of musical styles from jazz to rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and perhaps most notably, gospel. In its heyday in the early-to-mid twentieth century, the region became known internationally for its classic Tidewater Gospel Sound, sung in four-part harmony, without musical accompaniment. The Paschall Brothers are the current torch bearers of this traditional singing style.
Sights & SoundsSpencer Family & Friends: Greetings from Whitetop
Deep in the most rugged mountains of southwestern Virginia, on the slopes and in the hollows of Mt. Rogers and Whitetop Mountain, a rich tradition of old-time music has endured through many decades of changes. As the popularity of bluegrass, rock, and rap flooded the country, and as the popularity of old-time music came and went, and arose again throughout the Appalachians, the old-time musicians of the Whitetop area maintained their pure, rich musical heritage like burning embers in a banked fire.
Sights & SoundsNat Reese: Save A Seat for Me
Nathaniel Hawthorne “Nat” Reese was born March 4, 1924 in Salem, Virginia to Thomas Walker Reese and Rosa Sylvester Caroline Wilson Reese. Thomas was originally from Montgomery, Alabama, and Rosa from Bessemer, Alabama. The family had previously lived in Florida and Georgia before coming to Virginia to, as Nat puts it, “get away from the cotton fields.”
Sights & SoundsEddie Bond: Take Me Back
As this recording demonstrates, Eddie Bond has talents that can bring an audience out of their seats. He is a powerful singer in a soulful Blue Ridge Mountain tradition, as well as one of the most respected old-time fiddlers in the Blue Ridge.
Sights & SoundsLinda Lay & Sammy Shelor: Taking the Crooked Road Home
Linda and Sammy come from legendary musical communities on Virginia’s Crooked Road. The Meadows of Dan and Clayman Valley are tiny mountain places separated by 150 miles of hairpin turns, old mills, crossroads stores, mom and pop eateries, and towns with one stop light or none, but only 90 miles by the way the crow flies.
Sights & SoundsSharon Tindall and Nancy Chilton
Quilting, a method of sewing together two or more layers of material to make a thicker material, has been practiced for thousands of years. While the term “quilting” technically refers …
