Durham, NC · old-time · bluegrass

Alice Gerrard

1 upcoming festival

Bluegrass Hall of Fame singer, fiddler and guitarist whose 1960s and '70s duo records with Hazel Dickens opened the music to generations of women; she also founded the Old-Time Herald.

Alice Gerrard is a singer, fiddler, guitarist and banjo player who has worked in old-time and bluegrass music since the 1960s. Her recordings with Hazel Dickens, made when few women were fronting bluegrass bands, paired high, unornamented harmony singing with a repertoire drawn from traditional song, coal-country material and their own writing. The two were among the first women to record bluegrass albums as leaders.

Gerrard founded the Old-Time Herald, a magazine devoted to old-time music and its players, and has spent decades documenting and teaching the tradition. She has continued to record as a solo artist and collaborator, keeping the same spare, direct approach to singing and fiddling. She was inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and has long been based in North Carolina.

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