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Article: Folk singer fights to preserve Appalachian culture.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)
- Article from:
- Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
- Article date:
- December 4, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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A North Carolina folk singer plays music from a culture she's fighting to preserve.
"The English folk songs from the Southern Appalachians are some of the best collections ever done," said Betty Smith. "Up and down the East Coast, people know the ballads. The more rural the area, the more they preserved these songs."
Smith, 76, lives with her husband on a mountain eight miles from Hot Springs, N.C., and makes her living singing, composing and teaching about a musical style that's part entertainment, part cultural history lesson. In 1998, Smith published a book about a woman, Jane Hicks Gentry, who lived her entire life in the remote, mountainous ...