Ivy Sheppard is a musician, music preserver and general manager of WEHC-FM Radio. (David Grace photo)
Ivy Sheppard is an old-time banjo picker, preserver of old-time music and general manager of WEHC-FM at Emory & Henry College, Emory, Virginia. She is also part of the “I’ve Endured: Women in Old-Time Music” exhibit at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, Bristol, Virginia.
“I’ve pretty much spent my life playing, collecting, preserving and sharing old-time music and ... I’m a girl. This music is who I am and what I love. René Rodgers, head curator at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, called me up and asked if I’d be part of their exhibit and I said, ‘Sure.’ I’ve been producing a radio show for WBCM since they went on the air. It’s called ‘Born in the Mountain,’ and the theme song is Ola Belle Reed’s ‘I’ve Endured.’ I thought it was kinda funny when they picked that for the title of the project,” she says when asked how she got involved with the exhibit.
Sheppard played with the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers from 1998 to 2003 and with the South Carolina Broadcasters from 2007 to 2020.
“The music business is a tough nut to crack. People love old-time music, but they don’t want to pay for it, and though it moves something in them, they often don’t fully understand or value it. I spent years playing on the road with the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers and later the South Carolina Broadcasters. We were lucky enough to travel the world playing music, but it’s nigh impossible to make a true living at it. It’s wonderful, and it’s exhausting. I wouldn’t change a minute of it.
“Old-time music is pretty much gone. There’s a few who come at it naturally still out there playing, but YouTube and the prevalence of online sharing has dang near ruined it. It used to be that you sat knee to knee with some old-timer and learned the music note by note, bar by bar, lick by lick. Consequently, you picked up the sound of the person you were learning from. When I was playing with the Hilltoppers, Bill Birchfield told me, ‘Now Half-Pint don’t go playing our tunes with anyone else.’ He was proud of the East Tennessee sound and didn’t want it getting watered down by playing with other folks. That doesn’t happen anymore. Kids get online and listen to whoever, wherever, and what they’re playing is either an imitation or an amalgamation. That ain’t no good, and it’s sure not old-time music to me,” she says.
Her involvement with music and radio began when as a teenager she got her first show on WPAQ in Mount Airy, North Carolina.
“WPAQ signed on in 1948 with the promise to promote the music of the region and to this day it has stayed true to it. My first live radio show was on the WPAQ Merry-Go-Round when I was a teenager. It’s a Saturday morning live music show that’s second only to the Grand Ole Opry. But it wasn’t until I was 30 or so that I actually got into radio, so I guess I’ve been on the air for a little more than 10 years now. A buddy of mine had a show on WPAQ playing old-time music from Surry County (which is a renowned hotbed for our kind of music) and invited me to join him one day. So, I did. The next week he asked if I’d like to do it again. So, I did. And the next week he couldn’t make it and asked if I’d fill in. So, I did. He never came back, and I never left. It turned out I’d accidentally stumbled into a way of sharing music with even more people than touring, and I didn’t even have to look at them. It’s an introvert’s dream,” she says.
She worked there for several years while touring with her band. She eventually left to pursue her own show “Born in the Mountain.” That brought her to WBCM in Bristol and WAMU’s Bluegrass Country where she hosted other shows including “Stained Glass Bluegrass,” and WEHC where she hosted “An Old Revival Meeting.” Her show is now heard on stations across the Southeast.
“Born in the Mountain” is an exploration into hillbilly, blues and gospel recordings mostly as heard on 78 rpm records. She has amassed a sizable record collection over the years and makes my shows predominantly directly from disc. She also has a large collection of field recordings that she draws from. There are interviews from time to time but mostly conducted by other people. Occasionally there’ll be a current group that moves her. She’s had Larry Sparks, David Davis, High Fidelity and David Peterson on her show.
“In March of 2020, we stepped off a plane from playing music in England and the world shut down. An irritating little bug called Covid-19 arrived. Needless to say, I was at loose ends so when a job opened at WEHC, and I found out that Richard Graves was leaving on his own volition to pursue his art career, I jumped at the opportunity.
“Somehow, I conned them into giving me a job, and I couldn’t be happier. I love it here so much and finally feel like I’ve found my home in the world. The radio station had pretty much shut down because of Covid, and I subsequently spent the next year and a half virtually in isolation. Fortunately, I reconnected with a college buddy, Leigh Anne Hunter, and convinced her to spend some time at the station. Last spring, we submitted some programming for award consideration to the Virginia Association of Broadcasters and came home with three trophies. One for Dirk Moore’s ‘Together to Get There,’ Excellence in Sports Broadcast for Emory & Henry College football commentators, Josh Floyd and Gary Lester, and I won best on-air personality for “Born in the Mountain.” That really spurred us along and bolstered our belief in what we’re doing.
“Together we came to the conclusion that WEHC was in a unique position being the only public radio station between Roanoke and Johnson City and that we ought to capitalize on that and work to amplify the many and varied voices of Southwest Virginia. In November of 2022 we struck a deal with WVTF in Roanoke, an NPR affiliate station that allowed us to send our local programming to WISE-FM and its translator stations making the dream a reality. Maybe you’re asking why on earth did we push west. Well, I’d argue that’s the new frontier. We all hear about Roanoke and Richmond and Northern Virginia all the time. How often do you hear about Saltville, or Glade, Wise, Clintwood, Haysi, Dungannon? News happens here too. People do interesting things, make discoveries, share and enrich our lives, and that’s what we want WEHC to do. I want us to be producing local news stories, I want it to be our reassuring voices of reason you hear when you tune in to ‘All Things Considered.’ I want to be feeding NPR and the world our stories, and I want them told in our voice,” she says.
When she isn’t performing or managing the radio station, she is trying to save as many old records as she can and share them with as many people as possible. She helps people get modern transfers of old recordings and has been involved with reissue projects. “The Legacy of John and Frances Reedy” is a two-disc set that was recently released on Yazoo Records and “Early Upchurch: Gospel Voice of Mount Airy, North Carolina” came out of the Field Recorders Collective several years ago. WEHC’s programming can now be heard on 90.7 Emory, 90.5 Wise, and translator stations 90.9 St. Paul, 91.3 Pound, 90.3 Clintwood, 91.7 Norton, 90.1 Big Stone Gap, and worldwide at www.wehcfm.com.
