Mental Health Crisis Response And Mountain Valley Pipeline, Inside Appalachia

This week, people with mental health challenges or substance use disorder often end up in jail. But crisis response teams offer another way. Also, one year after the Mountain Valley Pipeline went into service, people who live directly in the pipeline’s path have received compensation. But not everyone. And, the Sacred Harp songbook gets an update for the first time since the early 1990s.

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Ballads

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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Recent Stories

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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Arts & Culture Zack Harold, Jul. 13, 2022

Traditional Murder Ballads Reveal A Dark Truth About 'True Crime' Media

There are many murder ballads from Appalachia — and most of them are about men killing women. Folkways reporter Zack Harrold is a musician himself. In fact, you can hear him playing guitar and banjo on a song called “Little Sadie” that appeared in the May 20, 2022 episode of Inside Appalachia. “Little Sadie” is a ballad about a man killing his sweetheart — exactly the kind of song Zack sought to understand in his reporting about murder ballads. What can they tell us about history? And is “true crime” the modern-day equivalent?

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