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, this event will highlight the long-standing significance of…