At 80, Bluegrass And Folk Pioneer Alice Gerrard Releases New Album

WUNC | By Laura Lee,

Published September 15, 2014 at 12:22 PM EDT

Meet bluegrass and folk pioneer Alice GerradWhen Alice Gerrard was a child, music was just a fun social activity with her family. Little did she know that she would become one of the female pioneers of bluegrass and folk music. Her collaboration with Hazel Dickens in the1960sproduced anthems for the women’s rights and labor movements.

Now, decades later, Alice Gerrard has become an icon for female singers and songwriters. At 80, she will release a new album at the end of the month featuring tracks with artists several decades her junior: Hiss Golden Messenger andMegafaun. The album, Follow the Music, will be released September 30. She will play at Carrboro Arts Center on October 30 with MC Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger.

Host Frank Stasio talks with Alice Gerrard about her music and her career.

Laura Lee

Laura Lee began her journalism career as a producer and booker at NPR. She returned to her native North Carolina to manage The State of Things, a live daily statewide show on WUNC. After working as a managing editor of an education journalism start-up, she became a writer and editor at a national education publication, Edutopia. She then served as the news editor at Carolina Public Press, a statewide investigative newsroom. In 2022, she worked to build collaborative coverage of elections administration and democracy in North Carolina.

Laura received her master’s in journalism from the University of Maryland and her bachelor’s degree in political science and J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Frank Stasio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.

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