Charleston is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of West Virginia and the seat of Kanawha County. Located at the confluence of the Elk and Kanawha rivers. The population was 48,864 at the 2020 census. According to 2023 census estimates, the city is estimated to have a population of 46,838. The Charleston metropolitan area had 203,164 residents in 2023.
Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, contra dance, clogging, and buck dancing. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering on a combination of fiddle and plucked string instruments, most often the banjo, guitar, and mandolin. Together, they form an ensemble called the string band, which along with the simple banjo–fiddle duet have historically been the most common configurations to play old-time music. The genre is considered a precursor to modern country music.
Hazel Jane Dickens was an American bluegrass singer, songwriter, double bassist and guitarist. Her music was characterized not only by her high, lonesome singing style, but also by her provocative pro-union, feminist songs. Cultural blogger John Pietaro noted that "Dickens didn’t just sing the anthems of labor, she lived them and her place on many a picket line, staring down gunfire and goon squads, embedded her into the cause." The New York Times extolled her as "a clarion-voiced advocate for coal miners and working people and a pioneer among women in bluegrass music." With Alice Gerrard, Dickens was one of the first women to record a bluegrass album. She was posthumously inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame alongside Gerrard in 2017.
West Virginia's folk heritage is a part of the Appalachian folk music tradition, and includes styles of fiddling, ballad singing, and other styles that draw on Ulster-Scots music.
The Denver Civic Center is a civic center area that includes two parks surrounded by government and cultural buildings and spaces. Civic Center is located in central Denver, Colorado, on the south side of Downtown Denver. Much of the area is a historic district which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. A somewhat smaller area was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 2012 as one of the nation's finest examples of the City Beautiful movement of civic design. Denver Civic Center lies partially within the north end of an official Denver neighborhood also named Civic Center. It includes the Colorado State Capitol building, in the west end of Denver's official Capitol Hill neighborhood, and it includes a few buildings in the south end of Denver's Central Business District.
Melvin Wine was an American Appalachian fiddler from the state of West Virginia. He was a lifelong resident of Copen, in Braxton County, West Virginia.
The Minnesota Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Association (MBOTMA) is a non-profit music organization based out of the U.S. state of Minnesota, founded in 1975. Its mission is to preserve and promote Bluegrass music and Old-Time music in and around Minnesota. The organization presents four annual festivals: Winter Bluegrass Weekend, Homegrown Kickoff, Minnesota Bluegrass & Old-Time Music Festival, and Fall Jam.
Johnny Staats is a bluegrass mandolin, guitar and violin player, born and raised in West Virginia. He has been featured on NBC's Today Show, in People Magazine, on the CBS Evening News and CNN, and has appeared on the Grand Ole Opry. He won Charleston's Vandalia Gathering-Mandolin championships in 1996, 1997, and 1999. In 1997 he also won the guitar title and placed third in the fiddle competition.
Tex McGuire was an old-time music and hillbilly musician who played the guitar, banjo and dobro. He was born Marshall Everette McGuire in Monroe County, West Virginia and died in Low Moor, Virginia at the age of 83.
The Culture of Virginia refers to the distinct human activities and values that take place in or originate from the Commonwealth of Virginia. Virginia's historic culture was popularized and spread across America by Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, and their homes represent Virginia as the birthplace of America. Modern Virginia culture has many heritages and is largely part of the culture of the Southern United States, however, Northern Virginia has become increasingly similar in culture to the Northeastern United States within the past few decades.
The Lilly Brothers, were bluegrass musicians born in Clear Creek, West Virginia. They have been credited with bringing bluegrass to New England and with influencing such future bluegrass artists as Peter Rowan, Joe Val and Bill Keith, among others.
Jake Krack son of Reed and Dara Krack, is a prominent young old-time fiddler and fiddle teacher from Nicut in the U.S. state of West Virginia. He began fiddling at age six or eight. His teachers include Bobby Taylor, Lester McCumbers, Melvin Wine, Brad Leftwich, Joe Thompson, Wilson Douglas, and Glen Smith.
The Appalachian String Band Music Festival is a weeklong gathering of thousands of string band musicians and their friends from across the country and around the world, who each year since 1990 have assembled near the New River Gorge in West Virginia in late July/early August to celebrate the evolving tradition of old-time music and the community of people who keep it thriving by preserving and contributing to that tradition.
Ernest O. Carpenter, born April 10, 1907, at Sutton, West Virginia, died January 23, 1997, was a famous American fiddle player, 1988 winner of the Vandalia Award, West Virginia's highest folklife honor, at the annual Vandalia Gathering. He is interred near Sutton, West Virginia.
French (Curley) Mitchell was a well-known American fiddler from Buffalo, West Virginia. French played the fiddle for more than 60 years and was a regular at the annual Vandalia Gathering on the statehouse grounds in Charleston.
This is a summary of the year 2013 in Irish music.
Andrew Forrest Boarman was an American bluegrass and folk musician. He was also well known as a banjo designer, luthier and repairman. From 1962 to 1974, Boarman's Hedgesville barber shop, out of which he ran a music store and instrument workshop, was a popular hangout for musicians from throughout the Southeastern United States. He subsequently became a full-time musician in the mid-1970s, releasing his first album in 1978, and was a popular performer at state fairs and music festivals across West Virginia.
Ethel Caffie-Austin is an American gospel musician. Known for her skills as a pianist and vocalist, she is dubbed the "First Lady of West Virginia Gospel Music." In 2020, she was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.
