Open up the MusicBox Project

Musician Gaye Adegbalola performs during an oral history interview at her home.

Coming Sunday: A Mill Creek couple travel the nation to find and record women playing the music of our roots

Dyann and Rick Arthur of Mill Creek have been traveling the country, seeking out women who perform traditional music: folk, blues, bluegrass, jazz, gospel and more. The couple are collecting oral histories from the women and recording them as they perform.

Their work, called the the MusicBox Project, has become a treasure trove; a portion is catalogued in the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and much of it is gathered for viewing online. “Women adopt and adapt. We found pockets of traditional culture everywhere,” Dyann Arthur said. “And the response we got for the project was very enthusiastic. They got it.”

Get a feel for what the project is all about in the video below, a trailer for MusicBox's short film, "Americana Women." And come back Sunday to read more about the Arthurs, the project, and some of the Northwest musicians who are part of it.