β€œWest Virginia, My Home” A Visit With Hazel Dickens Interview by John Lilly

hazelSongwriter and performer Hazel Dickens is among the most respected and celebrated folk or country music artists to come from West Virginia. She has recorded 11 albums, contributed to the soundtracks of nine feature films or videos – including such popular releases as Matewan and Songcatcher – and seen her songs recorded by artists such as Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Hot Rize, and others. Among the many honors and awards she has received is the prestigious National Heritage Fellowship, presented to her by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2001.

Born in 1935

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Gospel Boogie: White Southern Gospel Music in Transition, 1945-55

It has become a truism to say that most forms of traditional music in the American South were to some extent ‘commercialized’ by the end of the 1920s; certainly this is true of fiddle and instrumental traditions, country singing, the blues and jazz. By the middle of the Depression most of these musics had gained access to the mass media, either through phonograph records or radio. Throughout the Depression amateur musicians gave way to semi-professional, and then fully professional, musicians who spent most of their time playing music. While these changes meant erosion of regional styles and dilution of tradition,

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A History of Bluegrass Guitar in Western North Carolina

By John Martin

When folklorists like Cecil Sharp came to the mountains of North Carolina they found an enduring musical culture of Scotch-Irish fiddle tunes and ballad singers as well as some of the only black banjo and fiddle players in the country.Β  In the 1940s, western North Carolinians helped produce a new form of music: bluegrass. Earl Scruggs popularized the regional three-finger banjo style that in many ways defined bluegrass, and the state also made many contributions to guitar playing.Β 

While the acoustic guitar began as a rhythm instrument, North Carolinians Don Reno, Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, and George

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Wiley & Zeke Morris, The Morris Brothers

Rural Roots of Bluegrass

It all started with mama. It seemed like she could make music on about anything with strings on it and some things that didn’t, like the french harp. There never was enough time for mama to play, what with raising six rambunctious sons. But often on Saturday night she would put her work aside and get together with her two brothers, Rome and Joe, to make music. Joe played banjo in the old clawhammer style, and Rome played the fiddle. In addition to the hoedown square dance tunes, Rome was known to have played some beautiful waltz music on the

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Okeh Record’s Historic Session in Asheville by Kent Priestly

Click on the image above to view a slideshow by Kent PriestleThe guitarist, Henry Whitter, slid his chair across the floor to bring his instrument a little closer to the recording machine’s sound-gathering horn. A harmonica dangled from his neck on a wire truss; he made a tentative puff on it and looked over to the man behind the controls.

The guitarist, Henry Whitter, slid his chair across the floor to bring his instrument a little closer to the recording machine’s sound-gathering horn. A harmonica dangled from his neck on a wire truss; he made a tentative puff on it

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The Delmore Brothers – by John Lilly

“There was a big crowd there and everything was decorated and all fixed up like the president of the United States would be there. It was by far the biggest and most important contest in the entire country. People who had never been to a contest before gathered with the contestants at the Old Athens (Alabama) Agricultural School. My mother had made (guitar) cases for us out of cotton sacks we used during the picking season and we had our names on them spelled out in full. I painted them on the cases with pokeberry juice.

“You know how it

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How to Build Your Own “Hamdolin” by Wayne Erbsen

A chair rung joins the body to the neck.

Five or six years ago, I was rooting around in a wrecking yard near my home, searching amidst a sea of abandoned cars for an exhaust manifold for my old Dodge van. Call it fate (or just outright compulsive curiosity), but for some reason I happened to peer through the window of an old truck, and I spotted two empty ham cans sitting peacefully on the seat.

A chair rung joins the body to the neck.Well, right off, those pear-shaped tins reminded me of mandolins (we musicians tend to see music in almost everything), and that got me to thinking about the banjo-like instrument I’d once made out

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Music of the Southern Appalachians by Mike Seeger

This area is to the west of the flat tidewater and piedmont areas of the Atlantic coastline and includes some broad valleys with good agricultural land, such as the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, as well as many smaller valleys, some just wide enough for a little bottomland next to a creek. The eastern mountains are not nearly as tall as the Rockies; they generally rise 1,000 to 3,000 feet with a maximum of 6,000 feet, and are forested with a variety of deciduous and evergreen trees and many smaller bushes and flowers. Some mountains are green, rolling hills, but in

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Wholesale Info

We’d love to provide your shop with our down-home titles of historic & nostalgic American cooking, folklore and music. We are a small family business and love working with wholesale accounts of all sorts. You can order directly through us or through your favorite rep group (just have them reach out to us). You can also find our titles on Ingram.

To be more accessible for smaller stores, we require low minimums ($75 first orders/$50 reorders), competitive pricing, and we are always happy to help you pick out which titles will work best for your store. We ship UPS and

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2021 Holiday Gift Guide

The Native Ground family is so excited to gather again for the holidays. This season is always a time for good music, tasty food food, and of course, gifts! The Native Ground catalog provides endless possibilities for thoughtful gift-giving and we’ve put together this short but sweet 2021 Holiday Gift Guide for you! Treat your friends and loved ones to any number of books on vintage baking or how to play their favorite instrument. Don’t forget that all of our books come in digital download form too!

For the Home Baker…

Vintage Baking Cookbook Set

Perfect for the holidays (or

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