Sally Ann Forrester - born as Wilene Russell and also known as “Goldie Sue” and “Billie” - was a multi-instrumentalist and the first woman employed by Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys performing publicity on accordion and vocals in the group from 1943 to 1946. She’s...

Jenny Lou Carson (born Virginia Lucille Overstake) began performing on the WLS National Barn Dance stage at the age of 17 as one of the Three Little Maids with her sisters Evelyn and Eva. She played guitar in the trio and also wrote songs, including some that she sold...

A master guitarist in Piedmont blues, Etta Baker learned an Appalachian style of fingerpicking from her father Boone Reid, who she sometimes played with at local dances. Music was a big part of her life with several family members playing instruments from the banjo to...

Jennie and Pauline Bowman, the oldest teenage daughters of East Tennessee fiddler Charlie Bowman, recorded as The Bowman Sisters at the Johnson City Sessions in 1928 and 1929. They put down four sides for Columbia Records: “My Old Kentucky Home,” “Swanee River,”...

As with many old-time musicians, Samantha Bumgarner grew up around music and started playing at a young age. Her father Has Biddix was a fiddler – he did not want her to play “the devil’s box,” and so she had to teach herself on his fiddle while he was away from home....

Olive Dame Campbell was born in Medford, Massachusetts. She grew up in an educated middle-class family and graduated from Tufts College in 1903. She met her husband, John C. Campbell, while on a trip to Scotland; they were married in 1907. After the Russell Sage...

It was music that first drew A. P. Carter and Sara Dougherty together. Family lore relates the story of how A. P. was working as a salesman of fruit trees in 1914, and he came upon Sara’s house when she was singing “Engine 143” and playing the autoharp. A. P. was so...

Musician Elizabeth (Libba) Cotten taught herself to play left-handed and upside down, using the index finger of her left hand to keep a steady bass rhythm and her thumb to play the syncopated melodies. Her repertoire – “built…on a firm foundation of late 19th and...

Dynamic performer and musician Cousin Emmy was born Cynthia Mae Carver; she grew up on a sharecropping farm with her parents and seven siblings. With many musical family members around her, she began playing music young, eventually mastering the fiddle, banjo, guitar,...

Texas Gladden was born into a musical family in Smyth County, Virginia. Her grandparents played fiddle, her parents played banjo, and her brother Hobart Smith was a multi-instrumentalist who often accompanied Texas with his guitar. She began singing with her family in...

Aunt Molly Jackson – born Mary Magdalene Garland – was a union organizer, community midwife (from the age of 12), and songwriter. While there are quite a few self-told and carried-on embellished tales about her, Aunt Molly’s life was certainly filled with hardship,...

Ramona Jones learned to play fiddle from her father as a child, and soon after taught herself mandolin, guitar, and bass. As a young player, she entered – and won – several amateur contests. She told Rachel Goodman in her Southern Songbirds radio series, “I knew that...

Little is known about musician Lottie Kimbrough, though she appears on several compilation albums of important country blues artists of the early 20th century. Confusion over her story is compounded by her performing and recording under several names, including Lottie...

Lily May Ledford learned her driving clawhammer banjo style and adept fiddling at home. By the age of 12, she was playing fiddle with her banjo-playing father, and she also began taking part in talent contests from a young age. As a teenager, Lily May was in a string...

Leola Manning grew up singing the sacred songs she heard at home from her mother, later performing as an “evangelical street singer.” She recorded two religious songs at the first Knoxville Sessions in the summer of 1929 – unlike the 1927 Bristol Sessions, the focus...

Lois Laverne Williamson, better known as "Molly O'Day," was born to a coal mining family in rural Pike County, Kentucky. As a child, Molly's favorite country radio show was the WLS's National Barn Dance because they tended to feature more female singers. By the 1930s,...

Dolly Parton is one of the most revered and honored female country music singer-songwriters of all time. In addition to her prolific music career, she has also made a name for herself as a successful businessperson, philanthropist, and actress.  Dolly was the fourth...

Ola Belle Reed (née Campbell) was a musician, singer, and songwriter from Ashe County, North Carolina. Her family was steeped in the traditional music of the region, and she learned to play clawhammer banjo from her uncle, guitar and organ from her aunt, and...

Willie Sievers was part of a family band with her father William “Fiddlin’ Bill” Sievers and her brother Mack. Known as the Tennessee Ramblers, they performed live and on radio in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1928 they recorded for Brunswick in Ashland, Kentucky, followed...

Matokie Slaughter grew up in a large musical family, turning her hand to clawhammer banjo and developing a distinctive driving style. In the 1940s she played with other family members on local radio around her hometown of Pulaski, Virginia, and she also participated...

Patsy, Donna, and Roni Stoneman – daughters of Ernest and Hattie Stoneman – followed in their parents’ footsteps to make a life and career in music, each making their mark as part of the family band but also individually. The Stoneman Family was inducted into the...

While working as a school guidance counselor in North Carolina, Helen White saw possibility in the intersection of two issues – first, that young people weren’t learning about the rich Appalachian music heritage of their region, and second, that poverty and the...

Sunshine Sue Workman – born Mary Arlene Higdon, and later Mary Workman by marriage – worked on numerous country radio stations and programs, including WLS’s National Barn Dance; WHAS in Louisville, Kentucky; WRVA in Richmond, Virginia; and the Old Dominion Barn Dance,...