It's one of the most distinctive sounds in country and bluegrass music. You can hear it in the singing of Patty Loveless, Keith Whitley and Ricky Skaggs. The way these Appalachian-born singers bend ...

King David playing the lyre in a scene from a 15th-century manuscript of the Book of Psalms. Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Hulton Archive via Getty Images The earliest musical ...

When I saw her sweet, tender smile, it was as if everything was fine. I looked through the screen of the memory care unit and I just smiled back at Mama as I pulled out my guitar to begin singing. As ...

Picture this: It's sometime in the early 1990s, in rural Oklahoma. There's a little Baptist church – it's Sunday, and inside of the church everyone is wearing their nicest clothes. They listen to the ...

Like most people, nostalgic or not, I like Christmas music. There are few things I enjoy more than sitting in my writing space on a wintry December night, a cup of steaming coffee nearby, a comforting ...

'Amazing Grace' as it appears in Ginny Hawker's family heirloom songbook, Lloyd’s Primitive Baptist Hymns. You can see stains in the margins, left by the tobacco-covered hands of her aunt Annie Maud ...