
Custom Made Woman: A Life in Traditional Music
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 9781469690360
Publication Date: 12/02/2025
Alice Gerrard, an awardwinning and storied folk and bluegrass musician for over 50 years, is one of the notable few women in a heavily male genre. Custom Made Woman tells Gerrard’s story through the music, the folk festivals, the kids, and the relationships—both personal and professional—that defined her storied life and career. Her collaborations with Appalachian singer Hazel Dickens during the 1960s and 1970s were pivotal recordings during the decades after the American folk music boom of the midcentury; the duo produced four albums that have recently been rereleased by Rounder Records and Smithsonian Folkways. In addition to Dickens, Gerrard has worked with folks like Tommy Jarrell, Enoch Rutherford, Otis Burris, Luther Davis, and Matokie Slaughter, and founded The OldTime Herald, based in Durham, North Carolina, serving as its editorinchief from 1987 until 2003.
She’s also a lifelong documentarian of the folkways scene, and this book features nearly 100 rare photos—many never before seen—of key musicians, including Doc Watson, Bill Monroe, Hazel Dickens, Elizabeth Cotten, Mike Seeger, and more. In telling the story of her time as a player of traditional music, Gerrard gives us a deeply personal way to understand and appreciate a quintessentially American genre that has a long history and thrives to this day.
She’s also a lifelong documentarian of the folkways scene, and this book features nearly 100 rare photos—many never before seen—of key musicians, including Doc Watson, Bill Monroe, Hazel Dickens, Elizabeth Cotten, Mike Seeger, and more. In telling the story of her time as a player of traditional music, Gerrard gives us a deeply personal way to understand and appreciate a quintessentially American genre that has a long history and thrives to this day.
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Custom Made Woman: A Life in Traditional Music
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