West Virginia Music Hall of Fame

Did West Virginia inspire the John Denver Song “Take Me Home, County Roads?” The song is one of the things people across the globe connect with West Virginia. But there’s a debate about whether the song was really even written about the state. This year marks the 50th anniversary for the song.

Best known for “Some Kind of Wonderful,” the feel-good hit he penned more than 50 years ago that put Grand Funk Railroad on track for a chart-topping hit,…

America’s Polka King, Frankie Yankovic, was born at Davis in Tucker County on July 28, 1915, to Slovenian immigrant parents. But just days after he was…

Musician Maceo Pinkard died on July 21, 1962, at age 65. The Bluefield native attended Bluefield Colored Institute—now Bluefield State College—before…

Musician Hazel Dickens died in Washington, D.C., on April 22, 2011, at age 75. Oftentimes called the "Voice of West Virginia," Appalachian music matriarch…

American soul singer legend and West Virginia native Bill Withers has died at 81 of heart complications, unrelated to coronavirus, according to the…

Blues musician Nat Reese was born in Salem, Virginia, on March 4, 1924. When he was young, his family moved to Wyoming County and then to Princeton in…

Larry Groce, host and artistic director for Mountain Stage for 36 years, will be inducted into the 2020 Class of the West Virginia Music Hall of…

On March 5, 1963, country music star Hawkshaw Hawkins was killed in a plane crash in Tennessee. Born in Huntington in 1921, Hawkins got his start in music…

Poet, performer, visual artist and rock-and-roll icon Patti Smith joins us on this week's encore broadcast of Mountain Stage.Here she performs "People…