Alice Gerrard is a legendary singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and documentarian known for her pioneering role in folk, bluegrass, and Old Time music. She will be the featured artist in a series of events and concerts on March 5-8, 2026 in Knoxville, sponsored by the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound (TAMIS) as a multi-day Celebration of Women In Old Time Music. These events run in conjunction with the East Tennessee Historical Society’s presentation of the Birthplace Of Country Music Museum’s traveling exhibit entitled “I’ve Endured: Women in Old-Time Music” which runs through April 19, 2026. Here is BCM’s full video interview with Alice about the exhibit.

Volumes have been written about Alice Gerrard’s influence, especially as it applies to opening pathways for other female artists, so what follows will be more of an overview, but with plenty of links to other sources for those interested in further discovery of Alice’s life and work. 

Alice was born July 8, 1934 in Seattle, Washington, to musician parents who made music very much a part of their everyday family life. She grew up in rural Washington and California, and spent part of her childhood in Guadalajara, Mexico.

She attended Antioch College in Ohio, starting in 1953. Here, she was first exposed to traditional music through informal music parties, and it was also where she met Jeremy Foster, a folk musician from Washington, D.C. They married in 1956 and moved to the D.C./Baltimore area which was well known for its many folk, Old Time, and bluegrass picking opportunities. This was also where connections to Mike Seeger and her eventual long-term collaborator Hazel Dickens were made.

Production of Alice Gerrard and Hazel Dicken’s first album was underway in 1964 when Jeremy Foster was killed in an automobile accident. This tragedy left Alice a single mother of four children. Despite the circumstances, Alice and Hazel continued, and their debut album, “Who’s That Knocking?” was released in 1965. They went on to great success as a writing and performing duo. The partnership lasted until 1976, when they decided to split, so as to establish themselves as individual artists.

Alice’s solo career also included playing in various bands like the Strange Creek Singers and the Harmony Sisters. 

It would be 20 years before Alice and Hazel would again perform together. Here and here are lists of their many recordings. 

Alice married Mike Seeger in 1970, the couple splitting in 1980.

Alice Gerrard is considered to be a bluegrass music pioneer, especially in paving the way for other female artists. Along with Hazel Dickens, their influence was seen as opening the doors of what had traditionally been the male dominated bluegrass of the 1960s. Alice was also part of the founding of Bluegrass Unlimited magazine in 1966. In 2017, she and Hazel Dickens were inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.

Alice moved to Galax, VA in the 1980s, where she became part of the Old Time music scene. She became a tireless advocate of the musicians from that area, and is well known for her work in getting fiddler Tommy Jarrell recognized. She co-produced a film about his life, (here is a trailer from that film) and was instrumental in Jarrell receiving a National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship in 1982. She also used her experience from Bluegrass Unlimited magazine to found The Old Time Herald magazine in 1987. OTH lasted for more than 35 years, but, like many other small businesses, was never able to recover from the pandemic. You may also recognize the Old Time band “Tom, Brad & Alice,” with Alice, Tom Sauber, and Brad Leftwich. The trio focused on “...preserving and interpreting Old Time music, the rural pre-bluegrass tradition of the American South.” They released several albums between 1998-2005.

Ed.note: There is a current project to place all issues of OTH in a searchable database. Learn more at Whole South Heritage Works and the Southern Music Research Center

In 1989, Alice started donating her collected materials to the Southern Folklife Collection at UNC Chapel Hill. Concerts, documentary films, and a series of albums followed, both solo and in collaboration with other artists. Here is a link to Alice’s Bandcamp page, where you can listen to 18 albums.

Her 2014 solo album, “Follow the Music,” earned a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album. Her most recent original studio album, “Sun to Sun,” was released in 2023. In 2025, she released her memoir, “Custom Made Woman: A Life in Traditional Music.”

Alice currently resides in Durham, NC. Her performing and teaching schedule can be found on her website.