Cody A. Norling and Katelyn E. Best, Mountaineering Voices: Appalachian Primitive Baptists and Congregational Singing in West Virginia
“Nearly all mountaineers are singers,” wrote Appalachian author-artist Emma Bell Miles in her 1905 account of the region, highlighting its rich culture of song. Collective vocality is a hallmark of the region’s congregational practices specifically and is central to a Primitive Baptist tradition that remains active throughout the mountain territory. Governed by a Calvinist sensibility, the “Old Regular” Baptists practice a distinctive unaccompanied, monophonic hymn tradition. Unnotated, antiphonal, and deeply heterophonic, their hymn melodies are “lined-out” by a songleader and collectively sounded by the congregation—albeit with individualized ornamentation and rhythmic variation. Situated entirely within the Appalachian Mountains, West Virginia is home to Primitive Baptist congregations statewide, and its vocal musical identity is grounded in the region’s larger hymnodic cultures.
A partnership between the West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC), Monongalia Arts Center (MAC), and West Virginia University’s College of Creative Arts and Media, this event highlights the long-standing significance of Appalachian congregational singing among West Virginians through the lens of Primitive Baptist hymnody. It consists of a public interview with recognized practitioner Ginny Hawker on the tradition’s history, spiritual impact, and salient musical features as well as a student-compiled exhibit of locally held primary sources from the WVRHC’s collections, and it culminates in group singing under Hawker’s leadership.
About the presenters
Cody A. Norling is Visiting Assistant Professor of Musicology at West Virginia University and is a scholar of American musical life in the long-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. He holds a PhD from the University of Iowa, and his primary research area explores the varied performance contexts and repertoires that once characterized the nation’s operatic cultures, portions of which can be found in journals and volumes in the fields of music and history. Norling takes particular interest in local and regional perspectives, however, and he is currently co-editing a volume on midwestern musical identities for Indiana University Press while also turning this attention to musical life in his new Appalachian home. An active member of SAM, Norling currently serves on its Education Committee and 2027 Local Arrangements Committee, and he is serving out a term as president of the American Musicological Society’s NYSSL Chapter.
Katelyn E. Best is a Teaching Assistant Professor and Area Coordinator of Musicology at West Virginia University. Her research explores music in Deaf culture, hip hop, sound studies, musical movements, and cultural activism. She co-edited At the Crossroads of Music and Social Justice, which was awarded the Society for Ethnomusicology’s Ellen Koskoff Edited Volume Prize for Outstanding Edited Collection of Essays in Ethnomusicology and received an honorable mention for the Bruno Nettl Prize for an Outstanding Publication in the History of Ethnomusicology. Her current work traces the development of dip hop (sign language rap) in the United States and examines socio-cultural mechanisms that have historically colonized deaf experiences of music. While separate from her scholarly research, she has participated local Sacred Harp singing groups in Tallahassee, Florida and Morgantown, West Virginia and studied Appalachian singing traditions in an informal capacity with Ginny Hawker.
In partnership with
West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC)
Monongalia Arts Center (MAC)
West Virginia University’s College of Creative Arts and Media