Betty Smith has performed, taught and shared traditional music of the South for over thirty years in concert halls, festivals, workshops and classrooms. She combines her musical roots and talents with her skills as a communicator to present musical experiences which have been described as 'unique' and 'magical'. With her extensive collection of Southern, Appalachian and British ballads, folk songs and hymms - she takes her audience on a cultural voyage.

Betty has been the recipient of numerous ballad and dulcimer awards and in 1982 was awarded the Bascom Lamar Lunsford Award for significant contributions to the folk traditions of the southern mountains.

Her book Jane Hicks Gentry: A Singer Among Singers, published in 1998 by the University Press of Kentucky, was awarded the Willie Parker Peace History Book Award by the North Carolina Society of Historians.

The Appalachian Writers Association presented her with the 1999 award for Contributions to Appalachian Literature. She has also been honored by the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, the California Traditional Music Society and the Memphis Dulcimer Festival.

In 1994 she was awarded an Alumni Distinguished Service Award by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Betty has been recorded by Folk Legacy Records, June Appal Records, and Bluff Mountain Music. She has written curriculum for Open Court Publishers and Children's Music Workshop. Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre has produced "A Mountain Riddle", a one-act play written and performed by Betty.