Ballads

Arts & Culture Bill Lynch +, Nov. 14, 2025

Encore: True Stories Behind Folk Heroes, Runaway Trains And Murder Ballads, Inside Appalachia

This week, on this special episode with guest co-host, ballad singer Saro Lynch-Thomason, we explore songs about lawbreaking folk heroes, runaway trains and murder ballads.

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Arts & Culture Bill Lynch +, May. 09, 2025

Encore: True Stories Behind Folk Heroes, Runaway Trains And Murder Ballads

This week, we’re talking about traditional ballads - how they tell stories and connect us to the past. These old tunes can mean so much. They can tap into difficult emotions and give feelings space to be heard. Some songs may even be too uncomfortable to sing.

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Arts & Culture Bill Lynch +, Apr. 08, 2024

ENCORE: True Stories Behind Folk Heroes, Runaway Trains And Murder Ballads

This week on Inside Appalachia, we’re talking about traditional ballads - how they tell stories and connect us to the past. These old tunes can mean so much. They can tap into difficult emotions and give feelings space to be heard. Some songs may even be too uncomfortable to sing.

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Arts & Culture Connie Bailey Kitts, Jul. 31, 2023

Ballad Of Muddy Water Endures And Brings Healing

The back-to-back horrific McDowell County floods of 2001 and 2002 were widely reported by print, radio and TV, but these outlets could not tell the story and bring healing like Alan Cathead Johnston’s ballad, Muddy Water, with healing effects that still endure.

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Arts & Culture Bill Lynch +, May. 15, 2023

Encore: True Stories Behind Folk Heroes, Runaway Trains And Murder Ballads

This week on Inside Appalachia, we’re talking about traditional ballads — how they tell stories and connect us to the past. These old tunes can mean so much. They can tap into difficult emotions and give feelings space to be heard. Some songs may even be too uncomfortable to sing.

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Arts & Culture Mason Adams, Jul. 13, 2022

Real-Life Outlaw Otto Wood Went Viral In The Thirties

In the early 1930s, the way for a story to go “viral” was by being sung about in a ballad. That’s what happened to Otto Wood, a real-life outlaw who grew up around Wilkesboro, North Carolina. He spent time with the Hatfields of southern West Virginia, became a famous moonshiner, and died in a shootout with police in 1930. Less than one year later, his story was told in the ballad “Otto Wood The Bandit,” recorded by Walker Kid and the Carolina Buddies.

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