Kate Peters Sturgill
BornMarch 3, 1907 Edit this on Wikidata
DiedJune 19, 1975 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 68)

Katherine O'Neill Peters Sturgill (March 3, 1907 – June 19, 1975)[1] was an Appalachian singer and musician. She collected folk songs and some of her own songs were collected and are in the collections of the Library of Congress.

Early life

Kate Peters Sturgill was born on March 3, 1907, in Wise County, Virginia. One of thirteen children, she took to music early, playing parlor organ by age seven and mastering the guitar as a teenager. In her teens, she married coal miner Sidney Peters. In 1927, she and some neighbors formed the string band Lonesome Pine Trailers.[1][2][3]

Country Cabin.JPG
Country Cabin II

In 1937, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) funded the construction of the Country Cabin on the Powell River near Norton, Virginia. It served as a community gathering place where she and her sisters taught traditional music, performance, and crafts, and served meals to impoverished schoolchildren. While the original Cabin fell into disuse over the years, it was resurrected in 1978 as Country Cabin II and is now on the National Register of Historic Places.[1][2]

She went on folk song collecting trips with A. P. Carter of the famous Carter Family. Appalachian scholar Jack Wright described their process: "She was a distant cousin of A.P. Carter's, and when A.P. went on his song-finding missions, she would often go with him because he couldn't remember tunes as well as she could, and he didn't play guitar so well. She would learn the chords of the songs, and then he would write the songs down."[4] She herself was recorded by Herbert Halpert of the WPA in 1939, credited as Mrs. Kate Peters.[5]

From 1947 to 1954, she and Meadie Moles performed a biweekly show as the Cumberland Valley Girls on WNVA radio.[1][3] From 1948 to 1951, she was recorded by Tennessee's Folk-Star Records.[1][6] In 1968, she was recorded by folk song collector Mike Seeger, brother of musician Pete Seeger.[7]

After the death of Sidney Peters, she married another coal miner, Archie Sturgill.[1]

Death and legacy

Kate Peters Sturgill died on June 19, 1975.[1]

Sturgill is celebrated at the annual Dock Boggs and Kate Peters Sturgill Memorial Festival, which was started by Jack Wright at Clinch Valley College in 1969.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Kate Peters Sturgill · Virginia Changemakers". edu.lva.virginia.gov. Retrieved 2021-05-20.
  2. ^ a b Tennis, Joe (2010-08-18). Haunts of Virginia's Blue Ridge Highlands. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-1-61423-532-3.
  3. ^ a b Erbsen, Wayne (2017-10-05). Old Time Gospel Songbook. Mel Bay Publications. ISBN 978-1-61065-032-8.
  4. ^ COE, WHITNEY KIMBALL; COHEN-JORDAN, JENNIFER; HEDRICK, AMANDA T.; SCHAAD, EMILY; TERMAN, ANNA RACHEL; BEAVER, PATRICIA D.; Wright, Jack (2008). ""Looking into my culture": An Interview with Jack Wright". Appalachian Journal. 35 (4): 334–356. ISSN 0090-3779. JSTOR 40934561.
  5. ^ "I once loved a young man". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2021-05-20.
  6. ^ "LC Catalog - George Reynolds collection of Kate O'Neill Peters Sturgill recordings". catalog.loc.gov. Retrieved 2021-05-20.
  7. ^ Seeger, Mike; Bryant, Luther; Sturgill, Kate Peters; Boatright, Scott (1968), Mike Seeger recordings of Kate Sturgill, Scott Boatright, and Luther Bryant, retrieved 2021-05-20
  8. ^ Gilley, Terence (Fall 2015). Institutions of Higher Education and Cultural Heritage Tourism: A Case Study of The Crooked Road, Virginia's Heritage Music Trail (PhD dissertation). Old Dominion University. p. 101. doi:10.25777/55pk-9a67.

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