“Old ballads and folk songs to me are a way to imagine earlier times in our history. They help bring alive the struggles, joy and frolicking of generations who have preceded us. Through their ancient ornamentation and raw poetry, they connect us to essential and basic elements of life, like birth, death, faith, love, jealousy and play.” -Susan Pepper

Susan is a ballad singer and folk musician whose sound explores a variety of old-time and Appalachian music styles from ballads and hymns to dance tunes and homemade (original) songs. She performs traditional unaccompanied singing and also the fretless mountain banjo, mountain dulcimer, guitar and feet. The subtle ornamentation and old-time nuances of her singing voice help carry the listener to an intimate, delightful front porch setting. Susan has a Masters Degree in Appalachian Studies with a music concentration and spent much of the past decade living and working in the mountains of western North Carolina. In 2010, she produced On the Threshold of a Dream: Unaccompanied Singing from the Blue Ridge Mountains, a CD of her field recordings that features four elderly traditional singers from western North Carolina.
(Photo above: copyright Joe Young)