An important figure in American folk music, Alice Gerrard is a singer, instrumentalist, author, and educator who helped revive interest in old-time music through her collaborations with Hazel Dickens, as well as celebrating the importance of women in folk and bluegrass music. An excellent singer with a particular skill for harmonies, Gerrard's strong, plaintive vocal style was a link to folk music's past while also displaying a fresh, contemporary energy. Gerrard's recording career began with a series of albums with Dickens; the first was 1966's Who's That Knocking?, and the collaboration lasted into the mid-'70s, peaking with the landmark 1973 release Hazel & Alice. After devoting herself to other work through most of the '80s, she began a solo career with 1994's Pieces of My Heart. After cutting a handful of albums with the trio Tom, Brad & Alice, Gerrard pursued a career in academia before returning to the studio with 2013's Bittersweet and 2014's GRAMMY-nominated Follow the Music. In 2018, the archival collection of 1960s Hazel & Alice records, Sing Me Back Home: The DC Tapes, 1965-1969, was released. Gerrard is also well known for her folk music collecting with Mike Seeger and others and she helped to found the Old-Time Herald magazine.