Vital Voices

We talk with documentarian Willa Johnson about flood recovery in Eastern Kentucky and the continuing impact of the rains of 2022.

We talk with Ellen Stroud, the new Executive Director of The Carter Family Fold and Memorial Music Center in Hiltons, Virginia.

In a special fundraising edition of "Vital Voices," we talk with three NPR colleagues about their latest books. Our guests are Scott Detrow and Daniel Burke, co-authors of American Pope: Leo the XIV's Road from the South Side of Chicago to Vatican City, and Allison Aubrey, author of Your Turn: How to Create a Midlife You Love.

We explore the role of apple butter in keeping an Appalachian community together.

We take a look at the work of the organization Feeding Southwest Virginia and how it is attacking hunger in the region.

The city of Columbia, Tennessee, is proclaiming itself the Fruit Tea Capital of the World, and city leaders are busy preparing for the first festival to honor the designation. We talk with Kelli Johnson of Columbia Main Street.

From our archives, the late B.B. King revisits his hometown in the Mississippi Delta and remembers his musical beginnings.

We look back to the 18th century and trace the history of fiddle music in Scotland, with award-winning fiddler Dr. Jane MacMorran.

Dr. Douglas Hale from Vanderbilt University Medical Center explains how renal transplants are done and emphasizes the importance of organ donation.

We visit the family farm of Mike Fields in Hawkins County, Tennessee. In the summer of 2026, Mike grew a pumpkin that weighed in at 1,494 pounds. The pumpkin was a popular attraction at the Appalachian Fair, which is marking its 100th anniversary in 2026.

Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon was a member of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville for over 50 years. She was best known through her stage persona, Minnie Pearl. We talk with Belmont University's Don Cusic, co-author of the new biography Howdy! The Minnie Pearl Story, published in 2026 by the University of Tennessee Press.

We visit a kitchen in Scott County, Virginia, where late summer means the making of the garden-clearing relish known as chow-chow.

Dr. Kirk Pomper at Kentucky State University discusses the cultivation and uses of the pawpaw, the largest edible fruit native to North America.

In the second part of our interview, Retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Miles Burdine of Kingsport, Tennessee, continues his story about living with PTSD.

Retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Miles Burdine, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce, shares his story of dealing with PTSD that resulted from his three deployments with the Marines in the Middle East.

Our topic is the recent outbreak of Cyclosporiasis in the United States, and our guest is Dr. William Schaffner, Professor of Preventive Medicine in the Department of Health Policy and Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

We learn about the valuable work of a new member of the police force in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Kingsport, Tennessee, lays claim to a recipe for Long Island Iced Tea that originated in the 1920s. We discover how city leaders are using that history to promote tourism.

We remember one of the leading figures in the field of Southern barbecue. Larry Proffitt, second-generation owner of Ridgewood Barbecue in Bluff City, Tennessee, died on June 20, 2026. The Ridgewood has been in the same location and in the same family since 1948.

John U. Bacon's book The Gales of November is a New York Times non-fiction best-seller. In this second part of our interview, Bacon speculates about the causes of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which went down in the waters of Lake Superior on November 10, 1975.

We contemplate the final hours of the freighter The Edmund Fitzgerald, with author John U. Bacon.

In part two of our look at the life of First Lady Edith Bolling Wilson, a native of Wytheville, Virginia, we visit with Farron Smith. She and her husband Bill have taken on the mission of seeing that the second wife of President Woodrow Wilson is never forgotten.

In the first of two programs, we explore the life and legacy of Edith Bolling Wilson, the second wife of President Woodrow Wilson, and we consider how she is remembered in her hometown of Wytheville, Virginia. Our guest is Dr. Adam Manuel from the Edith Bolling Wilson Birthplace Museum. This program includes a very rare recording of Edith's voice, from 1949.

East Tennessee State University scholars Dr. Lee Bidgood and Dr. Thomas Burton discuss the stories and songs of the nomadic group known as the Scottish Travelers.

Our guest is Scott Simon, host of NPR’s “Weekend Edition Saturday.” We discuss his latest book, Ulysses S. Cat and Other Animals I Have Known.