Mary Jane Queen and her mountain music-playing family from Western North Carolina are gearing up for a national performance.

“The Queen Family: Appalachian Tradition & Back Porch Music,” a new documentary produced by the North Carolina Language and Life Project at North Carolina State University, is scheduled for a statewide broadcast and a national release on public television in early October.

The documentary will air in North Carolina at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 4. The program will also air on public television affiliates in more than 40 states at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 1, and at other times during the month of October.

“The Queen Family” is the latest documentary directed by Neal Hutcheson, a videographer with NC State’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences, under the direction of executive producer, Dr. Walt Wolfram, the William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of English at N.C. State.

For more than 70 years, the Queen family’s music has resonated in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. Mary Jane Prince’s marriage to Claude Queen in 1935 united two of the most gifted musical families in Western North Carolina. The 30-minute documentary invites viewers to Mary Jane Queen’s back porch, where the 92-year-old family matriarch and her eight children still sing their own brand of mountain folk music.

“The Queen Family” project grew out of Wolfram and Hutcheson’s work on a 2004 documentary titled “Mountain Talk,” which explored the language and culture in North Carolina’s Appalachian mountains. Hutcheson met the Queens while filming “Mountain Talk” and he included several scenes with Mary Jane in his original documentary. The scenes spawned the second documentary, which focuses solely on the Queens.

“At the time I was doing ‘Mountain Talk’ I felt I was documenting a culture that was fading away, fading from view,” Hutcheson said. “When I visited with the Queens and listened to them sing, I felt so excited because here was a place where the Appalachian heritage was so vibrant, robust and real.”

Wolfram believes the interest in “The Queen Family” reflects the wider interest people have in Appalachian mountain culture. The documentary also aids in preserving that culture.

“I think we are a lot more conscious about preserving our past than we were 50 years ago,” Wolfram says. “There’s a new concern for linking with our heritage whether it’s through music, language or life.”

In addition to the 30-minute documentary, a DVD version of “The Queen Family” includes special features and outtakes that won’t be aired on the public television broadcast. A companion CD featuring 27 tracks of folk songs and ballads recorded on the Queen family’s back porch is also available. For more information visit www.queenfamilymovie.com.