© 2025 Connecticut Public

FCC Public Inspection Files:
WEDH · WEDN · WEDW · WEDY
WEDW-FM · WNPR · WPKT · WRLI-FM
Public Files Contact · ATSC 3.0 FAQ
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

New CD Celebrates Masters of Old-Time Autoharp

Most people's experiences with the autoharp begin and end with grade school sing-a-longs.

But in the 1950s, a man named Mike Seeger proved that you can play real music on the small, 36-string instrument.

Seeger collected the music of Southern autoharp players and released it on an album in 1961. The collection surprised many people at the time and led other musicians to take up the instrument.

What Seeger couldn't fit on the recording sat on a shelf for 45 years, until now. Masters of Old-Time Country Autoharp, an expanded version of that original album with previously unreleased tracks, is now out on CD.

Seeger's mother introduced him to the autoharp when he was a child. But he soon lost interest in the instrument because it wasn't that interesting to him to just strum chords, which is mostly what playing the autoharp entails.

An autoharp's bars "deaden" certain strings. As a result, if you press the C-chord bar, for example, you get a C-chord.

But around 1956, Seeger's interest in the autoharp was reignited. He heard a recording featuring Maybelle Carter on the autoharp, playing a simple melody.

"I said, 'Oh my gosh, I didn't know you could do that,'" Seeger recalls.

Soon afterward, Seeger met Ernest "Pop" Stoneman. It was meeting Stoneman that gave Seeger the idea that there might be an undocumented tradition of Southern autoharp playing.

Seeger began recording autoharp players up and down the East Coast. He met Kenneth Benfield at a fiddlers' convention in North Carolina and recorded him and his father, Neriah, at their home.

Seeger also tracked down Kilby Snow in Galax, Va., and recalls hearing him play: "He played a tune and it was remarkable. I'm sure that lots of folks there have memories of hearing some life-changing piece of music. Well, that was for me."

Snow was even able to coax "slurs" from his autoharp, something like slides and blues-type sounds, popular in Southern music.

Over the years, Seeger met quite a few other players and wishes he had recorded more of them. But he's glad he got the opportunity to record the people he did: These masters of old-time country autoharp took an instrument that most people used for accompaniment and brought it straight out front.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Paul Brown
As a newscaster and reporter for NPR, Paul Brown handles an ever-changing combination of on-air, reporting, editing and producing tasks with skills he developed over 30 years working in radio and print journalism.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.

SOMOS CONNECTICUT is an initiative from Connecticut Public, the state’s local NPR and PBS station, to elevate Latino stories and expand programming that uplifts and informs our Latino communities. Visit CTPublic.org/latino for more stories and resources. For updates, sign up for the SOMOS CONNECTICUT newsletter at ctpublic.org/newsletters.

SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.