Music and Dance

Burns, Shirley Stewart. 2017. Long Time on this Mountain: the Songs of Shirley Stewart Burns. Laurel Fork Music. 1 CD. Folk album by Shirley Stewart Burns. 

Gainer, Patrick W., Hilliard, Emily. 2017. 2nd ed. Folk Songs from the West Virginia Hills. 236 pp. Collection of West Virginia folk songs in score format along with an explanation of the history of the songs. 

Hildebrand, David, Elizabeth M Schaaf, and William Biehl. 2017. Musical Maryland : A History of Song and Performance from the Colonial Period to the Age of Radio. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 213 pp. From the drinking songs of colonial Annapolis, the liturgical music of the Zion Lutheran Church, and the work songs of the tobacco fields to the exuberant marches of late nineteenth-century Baltimore Orioles festivals, Chick Webb's mastery on drums, and the triumphs of the Baltimore Opera Society, this richly illustrated volume explores more than 300 years of Maryland's music history. 

John, Emma.  Wayfaring Stranger: A Musical Journey in the American South.  Weidenfeld & Nicolson (November 3, 2020).  336 pgs.   Emma John's memoir follows her journey learning to play bluegrass music, a style with a reputation for being difficult to master.  A classically trained violinist living in London, John was unhappy with her instrument when a chance trip to the American South introduced her to bluegrass music.  Despite the seeming mismatch between herself and the Appalachian Mountains, John applied herself to learning bluegrass, while also learning about herself and the unfamiliar culture around her.

McCoy, Charlie, Stimeling, Travis. 2017. Fifty Cents and a Box Top: The Creative Life of Nashville Session Musician Charlie McCoy. Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press. 235 pp. Details musician Charlie McCoy’s life as a recording artist, touring performer, and television actor in his rise to fame in the 1960s.

Moore, Stephen, and G.T. Keplinger.  John Duffey’s Bluegrass Life:  Featuring the Country Gentlemen, Seldom Scene, and Washington D.C.  Booklocker.com, Inc. (April 15, 2019).  430 pgs.  Foreword by Tom Gray.  A biography of John Duffey, one of bluegrass music’s most important artists.  Through his work as a founding member of two pioneering bands, Duffey urbanized bluegrass and introduced it to a broad new audience.  Quotes from a four-hour, never-before-published 1984 interview with Duffey are interpolated throughout and provide the book’s foundation.