Beverly Smith

She was introduced to old-time mountain music as a child and has made a life of it, setting traditional fiddle tunes and songs beside her own. Her rhythm guitar is the core of her reputation, and she is also in demand as a singer, fiddler and dance caller. She has made many recordings backing fiddlers, singing with Irish musicians and singing with Laurie Lewis.

In the late 1990s she played guitar and sang in Big Hoedown, a trio with the fiddler Bruce Molsky and the banjo player Rafe Stefanini; Rounder released Bruce Molsky and Big Hoedown in 1997, and the group disbanded in 2000. She has also played in the Rockinghams with Stefanini, Meredith McIntosh and John Hermann, and her bandmates over the years have included Tara Nevins and Alice Gerrard.

With Carl Jones she recorded Moving Lightly Through This World, their first CD as a duo: mostly songs, sung in close harmony over their two guitars, among them lesser-known Carter Family songs, two Jimmie Rodgers numbers, songs from a collection of Alabama folk songs and four of Jones’s own, with three crooked West Virginia fiddle tunes played by Smith. Their album Somewhere Over Yonder followed, and in November 2009 the duo played the University of Kentucky’s “Appalachia in the Bluegrass” series with Alice Gerrard. She has taught and performed at music camps and festivals in the United States and abroad, including the Country Dance and Song Society’s camps.