Custom Made Woman by Alice Gerrard

Alice Gerrard, an award-winning and storied folk and bluegrass musician for over 50 years, is one of the notable few women in a heavily male genre. Custom Made Woman tells Gerrard’s story through the music, the folk festivals, the kids, and the relationships—both personal and professional—that defined her storied life and career. Her collaborations with Appalachian singer Hazel Dickens during the 1960s and 1970s were pivotal recordings during the decades after the American folk music boom of the midcentury; the duo produced four albums that have recently been rereleased by Rounder Records and Smithsonian Folkways. In addition to Dickens, Gerrard has worked with folks like Tommy Jarrell, Enoch Rutherford, Otis Burris, Luther Davis, and Matokie Slaughter, and founded The Old-Time Herald, based in Durham, North Carolina, serving as its editor-in-chief from 1987 until 2003.

She’s also a lifelong documentarian of the folkways scene, and this book features nearly 100 rare photos—many never before seen—of key musicians, including Doc Watson, Bill Monroe, Hazel Dickens, Elizabeth Cotten, Mike Seeger, and more. In telling the story of her time as a player of traditional music, Gerrard gives us a deeply personal way to understand and appreciate a quintessentially American genre that has a long history and thrives to this day.

Alice Gerrard is a Grammy-nominated old-time and bluegrass musician whose career has spanned nearly six decades.

A Rolling Stone Best Music Book of 2025
A Garden & Gun Favorite Book of 2025

“Open [Custom Made Woman’s] busy, bright cover collaged with pictures of Gerrard playing her banjo and interacting with other musicians, friends and family members, and you’ll find a whole world. . . . As Gerrard tells her personal story, intertwined with all kinds of musicians and makers, with the ease of a longtime raconteur, the book’s rich illustrations and sidebars offer pocket views into the diversity and vibrancy of the folk world.”—Ann Powers, NPR Music

“As inviting, unassuming and unconventional in form — part photo book, part autobiography, part collection of profiles of the musicians [Alice Gerrard] studied with — as it is illuminating.”—Rolling Stone, Best Music Books of 2025

“Remarkable. . . . It’s both a cool memoir and a cultural document.”—Garden & Gun

Hardcover ISBN 9781469690360 | 184 Pages, 7.00 × 10.00 in, 102 halftones

Publication date: December 02, 2025