Virgil Sturgill (born 1897 in

Carter County, Kentucky Carter County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 26,627. Its county seat is Grayson. Carter County is in the Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is home to C ...

) was a

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

singer and

dulcimer The word dulcimer refers to two families of musical string instruments. Hammered dulcimers The word ''dulcimer'' originally referred to a trapezoidal zither similar to a psaltery whose many strings are struck by handheld "hammers". Variants of ...

player. He was a friend of Cratis Williams. His performances were recorded in "Southern Mountain Folksongs and Ballads" (1955) and "Bury Me Beneath the Willow: A Treasury of Southern Mountain Folksongs and Ballads" (1950s). Eastern Kentucky University contains his collection, "Summer in Kentucky and other poems" (1928). The

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

possesses the following recording by Sturgill: One 10-inch tape of songs sung with dulcimer accompaniment by Virgil L. Sturgill, originally of Sutton's Branch, Kentucky. Recorded at the Library of Congress by Herman Norwood, June 1951. (1 hour; LWO 1821).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sturgill, Virgil 1897 births Year of death missing American folk singers People from Carter County, Kentucky Folk musicians from Kentucky Singers from Kentucky