Custom Made Woman: A Life In Traditional Music

Published by The University of North Carolina Press

Alice Gerrard is an iconic figure in American roots music.  Although she may be best known for her recordings and performances with Hazel Dickens, she is a talented multi-instrumentalist and singer in many genres of roots music as well as a writer, publisher, activist, photographer, historian, and a dear friend to many of the other iconic figures in old-time, folk, blues, Cajun, and bluegrass music.  If anyone in American roots music deserved to have their story told, it is Alice Gerrard.  One of the many wonderful things about this new book is that, at 91 years old, Alice is telling her own story through both her words and her amazing photography. 

In this book, Alice begins telling her story from her early days in Seattle, talking about her love for horses, the singing and music around her childhood home, and her father’s death when she was only eight.  Her father’s death was followed by a move to Mexico for a year, then settling in California, where her mother remarried.

Following high school (1952), her family moved to Europe during her step-father’s sabbatical year (he taught at UC Berkeley).  On their way home from Europe, the family dropped Alice off at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

It was during her time at Antioch that Alice began her life-long love for American roots music when her college friend, and future husband, Jeremy Foster handed her the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music and said, “Here, listen to this.”  Alice said, “Listening to the Harry Smith Anthology changed my life.”  And, for the past seventy years, Alice Gerrard has been an influence that has changed the life of many others.

  Part of Alice and Jeremy’s obligations at Antioch was to participate in an internship.  They both selected to get their internships in the Washington, D.C. area, and they both quickly became a part of the area music scene.  While in D.C., Jeremy would reconnect with his high school classmate Mike Seeger.  Alice and Jeremy would also meet Hazel Dickens, Pete Kuykendall, Dick Spottswood, and many others.  Kuykendall, Spottswood, and Alice would all later be involved with the founding of Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine in 1966.

In this new book Alice goes on to tell her story of meeting, working with and photographing many of the heroes of American roots music—Elizabeth Cotton, Doc Watson, The Osborne Brothers, the Stanley Brothers, Ralph Rinzler, Charlie Monroe, Bill Monroe, Kenny Baker, Gloria Belle, Muddy Waters, Tommy Jarrell, Dock Boggs, the Balfa Brothers, Ola Belle Reed and many more.

After her husband was tragically killed in a car accident, Alice married Mike Seeger and was with him for about ten years (1970-1980).  They raised a blended family, performed music and, among other things, they worked on a documentary film about Tommy Jarrell.

From 1981 to 1989, Alice lived in Galax, Virginia, and she goes into detail in this book about all of the wonderful old-time musicians that she met in this region of the country.   In 1987, Alice founded Old-Time Herald magazine.  In March 1989, Alice moved to Durham, North Carolina, feeling that there were more resources for the magazine at that location.  In 2003, Alice wanted to turn her attention to playing more music and left the Old-Time Herald, and the magazine was published by others until 2023.

This book is a wonderful exploration of the last seventy years of American traditional music as told by one of the people who lived at the center of the scene.  In reading this book, you not only learn about Alice’s story and the iconic American traditional music personalities, but you learn about many musicians—black, white, male, female, north and south—who were every bit as musically talented as the big names, but stayed and played close to home.  Alice’s telling of her life in music is captivating, and her stories about the heroes of the music that she knew provides wonderful new insight into their personalities and their lives.

If you are a fan of bluegrass, old-time, Cajun, folk and/or blues music, do yourself a favor and order a copy of this book.