The Old-Time Herald Archive Is Now Live

The Southern Music Research Center and Whole South Heritage Works have partnered over the last year to create a full, free digital archive of The Old-Time Herald magazine. The two nonprofits have announced that the archive is now live.

The Old-Time Herald, founded by Alice Gerrard in Galax, Virginia, in 1987, was published for more than 35 years, and printed more than 130 issues, each dedicated to the string band music of Appalachia and the wider South, and to closely related traditions including blues, gospel, shaped-note singing, ballads, and the old-time music of other regions. It includes scores of articles and interviews about both historic and contemporary musicians and music communities; the work of some of country music’s greatest historians; reviews of hundreds of albums and books; letters to the editor, which sometimes erupted into fascinating multi-issue arguments about such subjects as authenticity, region, and the profession of folklore; obituaries and remembrances of hundreds of artists, many of whom were not extensively documented elsewhere; important historic and modern music photography; and lots more.