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 ...

In the time of the first Elizabeth and the dour Scot who succeeded her, England’s four million produced not only Shakespeare but a half dozen other playwrights nearly as strong as he, and one or two ...

“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 ...