More Art From Alice Gerrard!

Thanks for visiting my Go Fund Me campaign. I hope you’ll help me finish two projects dear to my heart. Here is a little bit about me and my two projects.

I cut my teeth in D.C. and Baltimore’s politically-informed folk revival and bluegrass scenes of the 1950s and 1960s. I met Hazel Dickens in nearby Baltimore, and we soon established ourselves as one of the earliest female-fronted bluegrass groups. Hazel and I toured in the post-Jim Crow South with the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project, Bernice Johnson Reagon and Anne Romaine’s groundbreaking racially-integrated coalition of traditional musicians. This tour shaped both of us, our music, and our outlook on the world.

I’ve championed traditional music for more than 60 years. Beginning with my trailblazing early duo recordings with Hazel, my music has always been grounded, anti-establishment, and heartfelt. On my new album, Sun to Sun, my first album since 2014’s Grammy-nominated Follow the Music, I channel many modes of creative expression pulled from a deep well of inspiration. When you’ve been playing for as long as I have, you can start from scratch – using just the music you’ve heard over your life. I’m so excited to be joined on this project with an ensemble of up-and-coming players, and Sun to Sun showcases traditional music as a humanizing and galvanizing force, beginning with the title track:

What’s wrong, people, with this old town?

Everywhere I go, I hear the same old sound.

Talk, talk, talk,

Talk from sun to sun.

And while we talk, another fool goes and buys a gun.

-“Sun to Sun”

In the decades since, I’ve hit the road and the history books, and I’ve continued to perform and release music, advocate for traditional music, gain recognition as founder of the Old-Time Herald magazine, teach hundreds of workshops, earn a Grammy nomination for my album, “Follow the Music”, and contribute the title track (one of my very favorite songs) to Rhiannon Giddens, Grammy winning album, "Calling Me Home".

So now I have two new projects that I’m so excited to share with you and others, and for which I need your support. Your donation to this campaign will help my efforts to bring new art into the world.

The first, is a new album of original songs— “Sun to Sun”. The songs came together during the early COVID-19 pandemic. I was at home, flooded with memories and stories as I reviewed my personal archive for my in-the-works book of my documentary photographs. I wrote many of the songs during covid as I drew inspiration and musical ideas from observations, memories, and my strong feeling about the need to address social and justice issues surrounding us in our daily lives. I’m especially excited to feature good friends and talented musicians on the album - Tatiana Hargreaves, Reed Stutz, Hasee Ciaccio, DaShawn Hickman, Marcy Marxer, Nick Falk, Joe Dejarnette, and Phil Cook.

Photo taken by John Cohen

In addition to the album and for many years now, I’ve been working on a memoir based around my photographs. Around 2009, Tom Rankin, former head of Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies, saw the treasure trove of images I had collected over the years, and suggested I create a book. Thousands of images, directly from my vantage point, tell an incredible tale on their own of playing music, parenting, touring in the rural South with legendary artists such as Elizabeth Cotten, Ola Belle Reed, Johnny Shines, Sparky Rucker, Dock Boggs, and more. Add to that the stories that I will share from these captured moments and documentation it seemed that creating a memoir around them became imperative. (These photos additionally served as a companion process while making "You Gave Me A Song", a documentary by Kenny Dalsheimer, that was released in 2019 about Alice's life).