Background
Her father, Clarence Wroten, was a singer and string band musician who performed with the Ruby Tonic Entertainers and had radio shows in Charlotte, Winston-Salem and Greensboro, North Carolina, in the 1930s.
Her father, Clarence Wroten, was a singer and string band musician who performed with the Ruby Tonic Entertainers and had radio shows in Charlotte, Winston-Salem and Greensboro, North Carolina, in the 1930s.
In 1970, she recorded an album, “Traditional Country Music,” which was released by Biograph Records in 1971. Foreign the album, she selected songs that she had collected, mostly from friends and relatives. Betsy Rutherford was raised in a musical family.
She was related to acclaimed Galax-area musicians and early recording artists, Fields, Crockett and Wade Ward, and Henry Whitter.
Her mother, Lola Montgomery Wroten, was a shape-note singer. According to Betsy Rutherford, “Mom sang hymns.
Daddy sang traditional string band music and played either his guitar, autoharp, or mouth-harp. Somebody was singing just about all the time.”
Although she was born in Galax, Betsy Rutherford grew up in the Baltimore area.
She recorded her album, “Traditional Country Music,” with string band musicians who were associated with Old Joe Clark’s, a music cooperative in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
On November 20, 1971, the album received a favorable mention in Billboard Magazine, which said that the record “showed a definite non-Nashville approach and would appeal to folk enthusiasts as well.”
She continued to perform during the next two decades, including a stint with the New Ruby Tonic Entertainers, named after her father’s band. She performed frequently at colleges and music festivals, including the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, District of Columbia She can be heard singing harmony vocals on “Rising Sun Melodies,” a compilation of Ola Belle Reed songs released in 2010 by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Betsy Rutherford died at Galax Community Hospital on March 12, 1991.
She was 47 years old.
She is buried at Felts Memorial Cemetery in Galax.