Ella Hanshaw’s Black Book (Album) by Ella Hanshaw
When Ella Hanshaw (1934–2020) first picked up the guitar as a twelve-year-old girl in Procious, West Virginia, she dreamed of being a country star. Taking to the instrument easily and learning by ear, she played and sang at home with her parents on the family farm, and was once offered a chance to play on the Midwestern Hayride, the country music radio show broadcast out of Cincinnati. Over the next 74 years of her life, though, as she wrote hundreds of songs, Ella’s artistic goals slowly ascended to a higher realm. By the late 1970s, her music had become inseparable from her faith. She considered her work to be authored by God, who would “give” her a song—both lyrics and melody—which she could write down and complete in fifteen minutes. Despite her warm and easy voice, catchy melodies, prodigious output, and the tours she made across West Virginia with her quartet in the 1980s, Ella’s music was never recorded professionally or released publicly until this June. Ella Hanshaw’s Black Book, lovingly compiled by her granddaughter from home and church tape recordings, features a selection of Ella’s original gospel songs (Side A: Big Black Book), performed solo and with the Hallelujah Hill Quartet, and her broken-hearted country songs (Side B: Little Black Book) recorded in a back bedroom during quiet moments at home. On some of the unedited recordings, her children can be heard playing in the other room.
Folklorist Emily Hilliard, along with Ella’s granddaughter Kelly Kerney, contributed essays to the album liner notes. Emily has also written about Ella’s music in her book Making Our Future: Visionary Folklore and Everyday Culture in Appalachia (University of North Carolina Press). Additionally, Emily interviewed Ella for the West Virginia Folklife Program and will be hosting a listening session of the album at the AFS Annual Meeting in Atlanta this October.
Ella Hanshaw’s Black Book is the fourteenth release of feminist record label SPINSTER. It was released on vinyl, CD, and digitally on June 13, 2025.
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