About The Project

WOMEN IN BLUEGRASS [official title TBD] will be an eight-part investigative podcast series based on an archive of newsletters about the dynamism of intergenerational relationships, the power politics of feminism in a historically male-dominated genre, and how gender subversion has thrived across decades within the complicated and often paradoxical culture of bluegrass music. Current expected release date is September 2025.

From 1994 to 2003, a Virginia banjo player named Murphy Henry created a physical newsletter, entitled Women in Bluegrass, to bring awareness to the complexities of being a gender minority in the genre, as well as a way to garner female role models for her daughter who was then a young teenager entering the bluegrass scene. Within these newsletters, professional and semi-professional female bluegrass musicians interviewed their peers, wrote about personal accomplishments and tribulations, and created a community by sharing and supporting each other through major life events. Within the privacy of this peer group, the newsletter facilitated discussions like male intimidation, female solidarity, motherhood, pregnancy while touring, discrimination, and feminist critiques of the music itself. Not only did this newsletter facilitate these meaningful and necessary conversations (that otherwise would not have had a destination), but it also provided space for community support by building in segments to support readers through births, deaths, new jobs, mastectomies, and family members suffering from AIDS.

Until recently, this subversive newsletter remained available only to those who originally physically subscribed. Producer Tristan Scroggins has spent the last few years collecting and archiving the existing editions. This archive will be available to the public upon publishing this podcast. We hope this archive will be a tool, a resource, and an example to those who wish to learn from earlier generations of women.

As a companion piece to the digital archive, host Carolyn Kendrick and producer Tristan Scroggins will create an eight-part podcast series to explore what has and has not changed since Women in Bluegrass’ publication. In addition to interviewing the women featured in the newsletter, we will explore the genre and its paradoxes in the year 2025, how gender roles and expectations have changed over the last 30 years, the role of direct action in our current political era, and how cross-generational and cross-partisan conversation is the backbone of community health.

Please consider donating today to make this project come to life.