Appalachian Traditions with Chinese Dulcimer
Loudoun County, Virginia

If there’s one thing you can count on at the Center for Cultural Vibrancy Virginia Folklife Stage, it is that it will be graced by the presence of multi-instrumentalist and musical genius Danny Knicely. You can also be sure he’ll be up to something new. Danny has the uncanny ability to thrive in and elevate most any musical situation, and often melds the Appalachian folk music of his youth with the expansive types of music he has encountered in the diverse cultural communities of the US and the globe. He has shared his music and collaborated with musicians in four continents including US State Department tours in Russia, Tunisia, Morocco, and Cabo Verde, as well as participated in the celebrated Mountain Music Project with traditional musicians from Mongolia.

Country Radio Hour
Bristol, VA

Featuring Bill and the Belles, Linda and David Lay, and Elizabeth Laprelle and Elsa Howell

In the 1940s and the 1950s, Farm and Fun Time® was a critically important radio program in Southwest Virginia and the surrounding region that helped to establish the careers of numerous legendary performers including Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, the Osborne Brothers, Mac Wiseman, The Blue Sky Boys, and many more. Musicians both famous and barely known traveled from far and wide for their chance to perform live at the studios of WCYB in Bristol on Farm and Fun Time®, airing every weekday morning, mixing farm and weather reports with “hillbilly music” for rural listeners across Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and West Virginia. 

Piedmont Blues
Pittsville, Virginia

Gail Caesar was born in 1984 in Pittsville, Virginia, the small Pittsylvania County town that her family has called home for generations. Gail comes from a rich lineage of oral storytellers and musicians. She still remembers visits from her uncle, country bluesman Pete Witcher, who would sit her down to teach her the trade anytime he passed through town.

Gospel
Richmond, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia, has long been celebrated as a “Gospel town” for its legacy of vibrant Black gospel groups and choirs. Among the city’s generations of countless groups, the Legendary Ingramettes have become widely considered the city’s “First Family of Gospel,” uplifting audiences for more than six decades while becoming beloved cultural icons in the community. Music is one of many forms of ministry they have practiced, and the one they are most famous for. The storied group was originally formed by evangelist “Mama” Maggie Ingram, a single mother who steadfastly taught her five small children to accompany her as her “Ingramettes.”

Honky-tonk
Whitetop Mountain, Virginia

Martha Spencer is a singer-songwriter, mountain musician, and dancer from Grayson County in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She comes from a musical family and has been immersed in old-time traditions both at home and in her community from the time she was born. Her father was renowned old-time fiddler Thornton Spencer; her mother is banjoist, singer, and teacher Emily Spencer; and her uncle was the highly-influential luthier and musician Albert Hash. As a child, Martha soaked up the music and culture that was everywhere around her and learned to play several instruments by ear (guitar, fiddle, banjo, bass, dulcimer, mandolin) as well as flatfoot and clog.

Bristol is renowned as the birthplace of country music—but how are musicians in and around this border city evolving its sound for 2023 and beyond? This special set, emceed by Tyler Hughes, executive director of The Crooked Road, features brief performances by 5 musicians who received awards from, or served on, the Greater Bristol Folk Arts & Culture Team (supported by Mid Atlantic Arts’ Central Appalachia Living Traditions initiative).

Classic Soul
Petersburg, Virginia

Born and raised in nearby Petersburg, Virginia, Rodney Stith is quickly becoming one of Virginia’s most beloved up-and-coming classic soul and R&B artists. Petersburg has traditionally been better known for gospel music than soul or R&B, although local Petersburg record shop owner Ben Allen recorded several local doo-wop and R&B groups in the late 1950s for his Nu-Kat Record label, including The Velvatones, The Five Roses and, most prominently,  the Continental Five. Still, the musical heartbeat of Petersburg’s African American community remained in the church, which is where Rodney first cut his musical chops, singing and playing bass guitar with his uncle in several local gospel groups and later joining a gospel quartet where he gained an appreciation for singing with great emotion, passion, and soul.

Soul, gospel, and much more

Sherman Holmes and Cora Armstrong are dear friends and periodic musical collaborators. For this year’s Richmond Folk Festival, they will bring together a stellar group of musicians who recently enthralled the audience at a performance sponsored by JamInc. in the auditorium of Richmond’s Mary Mumford School. Joining Cora and Sherman that night were Richmond’s own Andrew Alli on harmonica, Jared Pool on guitar, and Reverend Almeta Ingram-Miller on vocals. CCV executive director Jon Lohman was so blown away by the performance that he invited the same group to perform at the Richmond Folk Festival. They will perform Sunday along with one of Virginia’s finest bluegrass bass players Jacob Eller for a set we strongly suggest you don’t miss.

Appalachian Traditions
Rugby, Virginia

Wayne Henderson was born in Grayson County, Virginia, where he still lives today. He is a full-time luthier and musician who specializes in building guitars and playing a unique finger-picking style. Using a thumbpick and fingerpicks, his playing sounds like flatpicking, with fast, accurate, and clean notes.