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Permission to publish or reproduce is required from the copyright holder. For more information, please see the Permissions and Copyright page on the West Virginia and Regional History Center website.

Conditions Governing Access

Special access restriction applies.

Researchers may access born digital materials by requesting to view the materials in person by appointment or remotely by contacting the West Virginia & Regional History Center reference department at https://westvirginia.libanswers.com/wvrhc.

Preferred Citation

[Description and date of item], [Box/folder number], Travis Stimeling, Music Professor, West Virginia Song Writer Oral Histories, A&M 4470, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia.

Biographical / Historical Note

Travis D. Stimeling, associate professor of musicology at West Virginia University, directs the WVU Bluegrass and Old-Time Bands. A scholar of commercial country and Appalachian traditional music, he is the author or editor of several books, including Songwriting in Contemporary West Virginia: Profiles and Reflections (West Virginia University Press, 2018), Fifty Cents and a Box Top: The Creative Life of Nashville Session Musician Charlie McCoy (West Virginia University Press, 2017), The Oxford Handbook of Country Music (Oxford University Press, 2017), The Country Music Reader (Oxford University Press, 2015), Cosmic Cowboys and New Hicks: The Countercultural Sounds of Austin's Progressive Country Music Scene (Oxford University Press, 2011), and The Opioid Epidemic and US Culture: Expression, Art, and Politics in an Age of Addiction (2020).

Prior to joining the faculty of WVU, he served on the faculty of Millikin University.

Adapted from the WVU Music faculty web site: https://www.music.wvu.edu/faculty/travis-stimeling

Scope and Contents

Oral history interviews with West Virginia song writers, including sound recordings of the interviews and the corresponding transcripts. Travis Stimeling was the interviewer. This material was the basis for Stimeling's book "Songwriting in Contemporary West Virginia" published by the West Virginia University Press in 2018. The interviewees are songwriters who have lived and/or worked in West Virginia for a significant portion of their lives, and who have local, regional, national, and international audiences.

Song writers interviewed in this collection include: Julie Adams, Andrew Adkins, Maria Allison, Colleen Anderson, Mike Arcuri, Adam Booth, Roger Bryant, Todd Burge, Shirley Stewart Burns, Lionel Cartwright, Clinton Collins, Dan Cunningham, Larry Groce, Chris Haddox, Doug and Shelley Harper, Scott Holstein, Dina Hornbaker, John Lilly, Chelsea McBee, Elaine Purkey, Michael Pushkin, Roger Rabalais, Jim Savarino, Steve Smith, Ron Sowell, Mark Spangler, Pam Spring-Connie Price, Patrick Stanley, and Taryn Thomas.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Burge, Todd
• Cartwright, Lionel, 1960-
• Country music -- West Virginia
• Groce, Larry, 1948-
• Purkey, Elaine