BY JOSH BECKWORTH— Perhaps no town in the Southern Appalachian mountains is more unique than Fries, Virginia. In a region that has historically grown slowly from small settlements to more developed towns and communities, Fries …
BY TED OLSON— FOUNDATIONS Alfred Lee Reed was born blind in Floyd County, Virginia; his birthdate was long believed to have occurred in 1880 (on June 15 or June 25 of that year), though researcher …
BY KINNEY RORRER— Charley Washington LaPrade was born in Franklin County in 1888. His family moved to Spray (Eden), North Carolina around 1900 to work in the cotton mills there as had other families from …
BY KINNEY RORRER— Charles Cleveland Poole (March 22, 1892- MAY 21, 1931) — Born into a family of North Carolina cotton mill workers, Charlie and his family moved from Iredell County to Randolph County finally …
BY MALCOM SMITH— Albert Hash woke to the soft and haunting sound of the Hermit Thrush. The sun was just breaking over Phoenix Mountain and sparkling through the old-growth red spruce trees outside his bedroom …
Albert Hash – A Young Genius on Whitetop Mountain Read More »
BY TOM CARTER— Dad Blackard’s Moonshiners, alternatively billed as the Shelor Family, recorded four sides for Victor in 1927. On these recordings Joe Blackard sang the lead and picked the banjo; his daughter Clarice Blackard …
The Blackard-Shelor Story: Biography of a Hillbilly String Band Read More »
BY JOSH BECKWORTH— Henry Whitter and Fiddlin’ John Carson’s initial recording sessions in 1923 set off a shockwave in popular music. Record producers, suddenly aware of an untapped demand for ‘authentic’ folk musicians, began scrambling …
The banjo and fiddle duo of J.P. Nester and Norman Edmonds had only two recordings released from the Bristol Sessions, but for many fans and critics the two sides represent the apogee of Appalachian stringband …
BY MARTY McGEE Emmett W. Lundy of Delhart was reputed to be one of the finest oldtime fiddlers from the Galax, Virginia, area. Born during the Civil War, Lundy acquired much of his older repertoire …
A Store with History The Floyd Country Store has served the community of Floyd through most of the twentieth century. Although its origins are veiled in obscurity, it is known that in June 1910 a …
—BY JOSH BECKWORTH G.B., or Gilliam Banmon, Grayson was born on November 11th, 1887. The precise location of his birth is unclear, but was either in Ashe County, North Carolina, or in bordering Johnson County, …
Soon after WSB took to the airwaves in 1922 in Atlanta, the radio station began broadcasting live old time fiddle music by the likes of Fiddlin’ John Carson and Gid Tanner among others. Across the …
