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Margaret is a native of Central Kentucky who has been singing the songs of her heritage for over thirty years. She was raised by her grandparents and learned the songs and stories of the mountains of Appalachia at an early age. She started her career, as many other southern artists have, singing in church. Her grandmother taught her to love the melodies and words of early American hymns, including the tradition of shape note singing. Her first solo performance was at the age of fourteen on her church’s weekly radio broadcast.

Throughout high school Margaret continued to sing the church choirs. She attended Margaret Hall, an Anglican convent school and for five years she was in a select choral group, Schola Cantorum, where she performed Latin motets and English madrigals. The well-known folk artist and archivist John Jacob Niles often wrote for the group and directed them in concert. She began to appreciate the intricacies of ancient music. Her first love in music remained songs she learned as a child. The melodies and stories of Appalachian folk music and their Celtic ancestors always drew her and she began performing as a folk artist while attending Centre College in Danville, Kentucky.

As a young woman she worked extensively in the Thoroughbred industry and traveled throughout the British Isles. There she found older versions of the songs she had known all her life and began studying and collecting songs from Irish and Scottish singers. The stories were the same. The people were the same sturdy stock as the mountain folk she knew so well. That was when she realized that she wanted to keep the music alive by performing it for and teaching it to others.

She has studied the background of many of the songs and ballads she performs and is a student of Celtic Mythology and spirituality, seeking to understand, not only the music but the minds and hearts of those ancestors who have shaped our present world. She has given demonstration lectures in schools, highland gatherings and on local radio programs on such subjects as the music of Robert Burns and the Celtic roots of Appalachian folk music.

In 1988 Margaret met popular Scottish entertainer Alex Beaton at a highland gathering in Carrollton, Kentucky. Alex is a pioneer in the performance of folk music at highland games, he worked hard to carve out a niche for the folk artist alongside the pipe band, the dancer and the athlete. He was impressed by her ability and encouraged her to pursue the performance of Celtic music. He also produced her first album At the Gate, and he often invites her to share the stage with him when they are at the same gathering.

When she is not traveling, Margaret lives in Midway, Ky., a small town in Woodford County. She shares the house with four cats (Thomas the Rhymer, Rudolph Valentino, Erroll Flynn, and Elly Mae), an Australian Shepherd (Herne) and a black dog of uncertain heritage (Charley). Between festivals Margaret works on her house, writes fiction, does woodcarving and painting and reads books to classes in some of the local elementary schools. When she has the time she runs her businesses Brindled Hound and Horse of a Different Color.

Her clear alto voice is as hauntingly beautiful as the ballads she sings. She draws an audience into the heart of heritage and tradition. She weaves the tapestry of the old and the new and reminds us that whatever is remembered lives. She entertains and while they are not looking, may teach her listeners a little something, if only to look behind in order to see the way ahead more clearly.