Podcasts by Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina
Further podcasts by Blue Ridge Music Trails
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Episode 13: Thomm Jutz and Nothing But Green Willow: The Songs of Mary Sands and Jane Gentry from 2023-11-07T16:29:47
Madison County is home to a centuries old ballad singing tradition which has attracted interest for over a century. In 1916, Englishman, Cecil Sharp traveled to Western North Carolina to hear th...
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Episode 12: Terry Roberts Talks Writing, Music, and Storytelling in the Mountains from 2023-10-26T14:44:01
Terry Roberts was born and raised in Asheville, NC. An award-winning author of five novels, much of Terry’s writing takes place in and around the mountains of WNC. Music finds its way into much ...
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Episode 11: Fine Tuned: Volume One, The Album from 2023-10-11T18:47:15
In Seasons 4 and 5, we’ve had the honor and privilege to bring you stories of the Blue Ridge Music Trails’ Fine Tuned project. This mentorship and collaboration-based professional development pr...
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Episode 10: Plott-Tober Fest Celebrates the Plott Hound and German Heritage from 2023-09-25T20:46:36
Plott-Tober fest is a new festival set to take place in Canton in 2023. This festival celebrates North Carolina's State Dog, the Plott Hound, as well as the German heritage of Haywood County. We...
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Episode 9: The Blowing Rock Fiddlers' Convention of 1928 from 2023-09-12T16:56:23
Music inhabits its purest form when people get together to make music with one another. In this spirit, the fiddlers’ convention is an essential element of the traditional music ecosystem in Wes...
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Episode 8: Cherokee Language Repertory Choir from 2023-08-07T19:25:51
The Cherokee Language Repertory Choir started in the spring of 2023. This choir uses the Christian Harmony shaped note tradition, but instead of singing it traditionally, in English, this choir ...
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Episode 7: Songwriters Showcase at Peacock Performing Arts Center from 2023-08-01T18:40:40
The Peacock Performing Arts Center in Hayesville presents a wide range of programming. It's Songwriters Series is a highlight of the lineup. Hosted by local songwriter Rob Tiger, the series brin...
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Episode 6: Kelley Breiding and“The Place Where the Stories Come From” from 2023-07-10T15:45:21
Kelley Breiding is a musician who wears a lot of hats, at least one of which is often a cowboy hat and complements a vibrant, handcrafted outfit. Kelley is part of multiple bands and projects in...
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Episode 5: Roseland Gardens: Black Moutain Juke Joint from 2023-06-27T16:22:33
Did you know that Black Mountain had an integrated juke joint and that Bessie Smith performed there? On this episode we feature an oral history with Katherine Debrow, courtesy of the Swannanoa V...
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Episode 3: Blue Ridge Music Trails Stops Along the Blue Ridge Parkway Part 2 from 2023-05-31T20:19:19
The Blue Ridge Music Trails covers 29 counties throughout the mountains and foothills of Western North Carolina. The Blue Ridge Parkways runs directly through this territory and is never far fro...
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Episode 2: Blue Ridge Music Trails Stops Along the Blue Ridge Parkway Part 1 from 2023-05-31T20:08:49
The Blue Ridge Music Trails covers 29 counties throughout the mountains and foothills of Western North Carolina. The Blue Ridge Parkways runs directly through this territory and is never far fro...
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Episode 4: Darren Nicholson Remembers a Mentor and Charts a New Path from 2023-05-30T15:46:16
Darren Nicholson has been a fixture in the WNC and national music scenes for almost two decades. The year 2023 marks a series of new endeavors for Darren. In this episode he talks about learning...
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Episode 1: Fine Tuned: Josh Jones and Sav Sankaran from 2023-03-28T17:30:08
The Blue Ridge Music Trails’ Fine Tuned project is a mentorship and collaboration-based project aimed at professional development for emerging artists playing traditional music in Western North ...
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Episode 20: Fine Tuned: Bayla Davis and Cary Fridley from 2023-03-13T20:49:27
The Blue Ridge Music Trails’ Fine Tuned project is a mentorship and collaboration-based project aimed at professional development for emerging artists playing traditional music in Western North ...
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Episode 20: Fine Tuned: Benjamin Barker and David LaMotte from 2023-02-28T19:00:42
Fine Tuned is a mentorship and collaboration-based project aimed at professional development for emerging artists playing traditional music in Western North Carolina. In this episode, David LaMo...
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Episode 19: Fine Tuned: The Allen Boys with DaShawn Hickman and Kelley Breiding from 2023-02-13T21:02:34
The Blue Ridge Music Trails’ Fine Tuned project is a mentorship and collaboration-based project aimed at professional development for emerging artists playing traditional music in Western North ...
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Episode 17: Fine Tuned: Jarrett Wildcat&Keaw'e Bone from 2023-01-30T16:10:33
Fine Tuned is a mentorship and collaboration-based project aimed at professional development for emerging artists playing traditional music in Western North Carolina. Jarrett Wildcat and Keaw'e ...
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Episode 16: Introducing the Fine Tuned Project from 2023-01-13T20:32:37
Fine Tuned is a mentorship and collaboration-based project aimed at professional development for emerging artists playing traditional music in Western North Carolina. Fine Tuned has brought toge...
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Episode 15: Is it a Fiddle or a Violin? from 2022-12-10T19:01:33
We’re coming to you this week to answer an age-old question: is it a fiddle or a violin?
Few folks in Western North Carolina are better equipped to answer that question than master fiddler Ro...
Episode 14: Bobby Hicks: A Fiddling Icon from 2022-12-10T19:00:21
Bobby Hicks is a fiddling icon. His career as a recording artist and performer has spanned more than 7 decades. During this time, Bobby’s style, session work, and touring have helped to define t...
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Episode 13: Forevermore Donna Ray Norton Will Sing from 2022-10-11T12:15:35
Donna Ray Norton is no stranger to the musical community of Western North Carolina. She’s an 8th generation ballad singer who grew up in the legendary Sodom community of Madison County, a county...
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Episode 12: A Deep Dive into the Earl Scruggs Music Festival from 2022-08-30T11:34:33
Earl Scruggs hailed from Flint Hill in rural Cleveland County. In his decades-long career he helped define bluegrass music as we know it today. The Earl Scruggs Center, in partnership with WNCW,...
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Episode 11: The 51st Smoky Mountain Folk Festival from 2022-08-26T17:11:35
The 51st Smoky Mountain Folk Festival. returns to the shores of Lake Junaluska in Haywood County this August. Now in its 6th decade, the festival coincides with a time when communities would ga...
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Episode 10: Listen to Legendary WNC Instruments from 2022-08-04T15:40:55
If well-constructed and properly cared for, an instrument will outlive generations of musicians that play it. Many of the instruments that have influenced our music still sing long after their o...
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Episode 9: Carl Sandburg and the American Songbag from 2022-07-22T18:56:29
Carl Sandburg dedicated the American Songbag, “To those unknown singers–who made songs–out of love, fun, grief–and to those many other singers–who kept those songs as living things of the heart ...
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Episode 8: Western North Carolina Music’s Impact in Popular Culture from 2022-06-30T19:40:36
The imprint of Western North Carolina’s vibrant musical tradition can be seen and heard time and again as our music has worked its way into the arena of popular culture. From the moment Jed Clam...
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Episode 7: The Jagged Path Works to Tell a Fuller Story from 2022-06-08T12:13:31
The history of Western North Carolina has long been a subject of study for local and international scholars. Many of those efforts have been focused on only a portion of the culture and experien...
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Episode 6: Derek Piotr Explores NC Mountain Singing from 2022-05-25T10:34:05
Originally from Connecticut, Derek moved to Elk Park, NC in the spring of 2022 to continue exploring the singing traditions of the Bare family and the communities throughout Western North Caroli...
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Episode 5: Billy Edd Wheeler, Songwriter from 2022-05-03T19:45:32
Billy Edd Wheeler came to North Carolina from the coal camp of Highcoal in West Virginia. As a boy, he began playing guitar and penned his first song “Paper Boy Blues,” about delivering newspap...
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Episode 4: Asheville Music Walking Tour from 2022-05-03T19:43:57
The Asheville music scene is known for its depth of talent, wealth of offerings, and sense of exploration. You might think this music scene has sprung up over the last 20 years during the city’s...
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Episode 3: The Musical Happy Valley from 2022-03-23T19:01:14
The Happy Valley community lies between Lenoir and Blowing Rock along the Yadkin River. This fertile valley is so scenic and peaceful that early settlers gave it the name “Happy Valley.” The val...
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Episode 2: Train Songs and Marshall’s Historic Depot from 2022-03-09T19:43:55
You can hardly hear a set of bluegrass music without hearing a train song. Some are poetic like the Wabash Cannonball. “Listen to the jingle the rumble and the roar, as she glides along the wood...
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Episode 1: Remembering Bobby McMillion from 2022-02-23T19:47
Bobby McMillon passed away on November 28, 2021. His passing leaves a great void in the traditional music and Appalachian cultural landscape. Throughout the course of his life, Bobby took this a...
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Episode 20: Traditional Artist Directory Spotlight David Holt from 2021-11-18T16:37:17
David Holt grew up in Garland, Texas. He says “I grew up in a family of informal storytellers, and there was plenty to tell about our wild and wooly Texas forefathers. Storytelling was just a n...
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Episode 19: Remembering Arvil Freeman from 2021-11-03T15:12:28
Of all the fiddlers in the fiddler-rich region of Western North Carolina, Arvil Freeman was a veritable North Star of Western North Carolina fiddling and traditional music as a whole. Arvil is l...
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Episode 18: Lots of Great Ways to Learn Music in WNC from 2021-10-29T18:00:27
Across Western North Carolina, people looking to learn to play an instrument or musicians looking to step up their game can enjoy many opportunities to learn in immersive settings. Many camps of...
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Episode 17: The Cuckoo: A chart topper since the 1200’s from 2021-10-06T15:16:47
The English folksong “The Cuckoo,” often sung as a round or canon, celebrated the arrival of summer recalling the sights and sounds of English barnyards and meadows. Some scholars consider the s...
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Episode 16: The Bascom Lamar Lunsford Mountain Music Festival Carries on a Legacy from 2021-09-23T14:12:01
The Bascom Lamar Lunsford Mountain Music Festival is the only one that Lunsford allowed to carry his name. In 1928, Lunsford started the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville as part of ...
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Episode 15: The Tom Dula Legends Lives On from 2021-09-07T16:33:27
Do you know the legend of Tom Dooley? Do you know he was a real person and lived in Western North Carolina? Do you know he was convicted of murder and sentenced to hang? The ballad “Tom Dooley”,...
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Episode 14: Storytelling on the Blue Ridge Music Trails from 2021-08-24T18:05:41
Everybody and everything has a story. What is her story, what is his story? Did you ever wonder about the cautionary messages in the fairy tales? Folklorists will tell you that story plays a v...
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Episode 13: What is a D.O.G. from 2021-08-13T14:53:16
As soon as the crops are canned, frozen and laid by for the fall, communities in Western North Carolina gather to sing shaped-notes from the Christian Harmony songbook. Now, over 129 years since...
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Episode 12: Step it Up and Go is David Menconi’s Love Letter to North Carolina Music from 2021-07-27T18:18:47
Step It Up & Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music was released by David Menconi in 2020. Taking its title from one of the signature songs of Durham blues artist Blind Boy F...
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Episode 11: The Green Grass Cloggers from 2021-07-13T19:23:57
Dance is an essential part of the musical traditions of Western North Carolina. Dancing and music go hand-in-hand, and for many years, dances with live music were a central meeting point for com...
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Episode 10: Wayne Erbsen: Musician, Teacher, Author, and Radio Host from 2021-06-30T17:06:31
Inspired by his love of traditional Southern music, Wayne Erbsen moved to the mountain South in the early 1970's to learn from the masters of old-time and bluegrass. In the more than forty years...
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Episode 9: Unto These Hills from 2021-06-08T14:29:05
The historical production portrays the arrival of Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto in 1540, the participation of the Cherokee in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, and the removal of the Cherokee from t...
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Episode 8: Traditional Artist Directory Spotlight: Susan Pepper from 2021-05-18T17:42:37
Susan Pepper first came to Western North Carolina in 2003 to attend the Swannanoa Gathering at Warren Wilson College. She moved to Asheville in 2004 and in 2005 moved to Boone to pursue a master's ...
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Episode 7: Blue Ridge Craft Trails Spotlight: Richard Beard from 2021-05-04T13:53:46
Richard Beard, a luthier on the Blue Ridge Craft Trails, is never away from music for very long. When he’s not building instruments in his Rutherfordton shop, he’s often playing music. And when he’...
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Episode 6: Traditional Artist Directory Spotlight: Michael Reno Harrell from 2021-04-20T15:36:09
The Traditional Artist Directory, located on the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area website, blueridgeheritage.com serves as a vehicle to promote artists found along the Blue Ridge Music Trails of N...
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Episode 5: Traditional Artist Directory Spotlight: The Burnett Sisters Band from 2021-03-30T15:48:22
The Blue Ridge National Heritage Area serves as the steward of the living traditions of our region, protecting and promoting the outdoor landscapes, heritage agriculture, Cherokee culture, craft an...
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Episode 4: NC Musician Murals Project from 2021-03-22T16:17:05
The NC Musician Murals Project began as a casual arrangement between artist Scott Nurkin and the owner of Pepper’s Pizza in Chapel Hill. Nurkin would create portraits of renowned NC musicians to co...
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Episode 3: Banjo Builders in WNC from 2021-03-02T15:01:27
The roots of the banjo go back to West Africa. Early versions of the instrument came to the Americas with enslaved people. In the Appalachian Mountains of Western North Carolina, the banjo took a s...
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Episode 2: Music’s Functions in the Farmers Federation from 2021-02-15T19:19:13
The Farmers Federation Cooperative, an organization focused on sharing progressive farming methods and creating a thriving agricultural market in WNC included music as essential to the endeavor. Fa...
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Episode 1: Byard Ray's Old Fiddle Makes New Music from 2021-02-01T17:59:20
Fiddle music is a richly layered tapestry that runs through the core of Western North Carolina. The passing down of the traditions (or styles), and instruments is ever present. In 2020 North Caroli...
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Matthew Tooni Carries on Traditions of Cherokee Stories and Music from 2020-03-30T13:46:47
Cultures around the world face the problem of losing their traditions when younger people don’t take interest in their heritage. But among the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, an exceptionally ded...
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Jack Guy Compiled a Treasure Trove of Mountain Music from 2020-03-23T20:27:40
For more than a hundred years, folklorists and other scholars have been visiting the community of Beech Mountain, North Carolina. Perhaps the most prolific collector of the community’s music and st...
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Byard Ray and Obray Ramsey Make Long, Strange Trip into Pop Culture from 2020-01-17T22:23:25
It’s not unusual for traditional musicians to influence artists in other styles, and that kind of cross-pollination was especially common in the 1960s and ’70s, as pop and rock musicians mined the ...
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Young Presley Barker Dazzles on the Flatpicked Guitar from 2019-12-18T19:06:31
The Blue Ridge Mountains of northwestern North Carolina and southwestern Virginia have produced legendary bluegrass and old-time guitarists. Presley Barker is the newest member of the lineage of vi...
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Don Reno Finds Success as a Bluegrass Banjo Innovator and Bandleader from 2019-12-16T17:06:03
While Earl Scruggs is often credited as the originator of bluegrass banjo, he was actually an innovator within a broader tradition of three-finger banjo playing. Predating bluegrass, it was made fa...
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Mary Jane Queen Preserved a Family Tradition of Songs and Stories from 2019-12-10T14:49:24
In Jackson County, North Carolina, the Queen family has long played, sung, and shared the music of their native home. The matriarch of the Queen family was Mary Jane Queen. Her father, James Sylves...
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David Holt Shares Blue Ridge Mountain Music with the World from 2019-11-07T19:37:04
It all began when David Holt was a college student at UC Santa Barbara. At a campus concert, he heard Ralph Stanley play the clawhammer banjo, the driving style Ralph’s mother played. After the sho...
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Lillian Chase Fiddles a Smooth Mountain Blend of Bluegrass and Old-Time Music from 2019-08-30T17:45:23
Fiddler Lillian Chase is young–she was born in 2003–but she is the steward of a centuries-old musical tradition of her native Blue Ridge Mountains. Raised in a family that has been living in the mo...
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Smoky Mountain Folk Festival Celebrates Fifty Years of Music and Dance from 2019-08-30T17:26:03
Back in 1969, while still a college student, Joe Sam Queen, grandson of legendary dancer Sam Love Queen, was asked by the town of Waynesville to call a square dance on the streets of downtown. The ...
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Fiddler Carley Arrowood Lends Her Voice to Mountain Music from 2019-08-22T15:22:26
It’s not unusual for a mountain musician to be a part of several different musical traditions. A Blue Ridge fiddler might play in a mountain swing session on Friday night, sit in with an old-time b...
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Rhiannon Ramsey Exemplifies the Next Generation of Fiddlers from 2019-06-27T18:30:24
Recent years have seen a blossoming of interest in mountain music among musicians who were born in the 1990s and 2000s. Among the youngest of this cohort, North Carolina fiddler Rhiannon Ramsey epi...
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Zoe and Cloyd Bring Varied Family Traditions to Mountain Music from 2019-06-17T17:10:16
The husband-and-wife duo of Natalya Zoe Weinstein and John Cloyd Miller perform under their middle names. Zoe and Cloyd represents not only the partnership between Natalya and John, but a coming-to...
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Raymond Fairchild Creates His Own Style of Playing the Banjo from 2019-04-01T15:38:11
Bluegrass banjo player Raymond Fairchild of Haywood County, North Carolina, embodies the spirit of originality found in many of the best mountain musicians. He has always done things his own way. H...
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Railroad Tunnel to Asheville Ends in Triumph and Tragedy from 2019-03-22T15:27:04
In 1941, the famed folklorist and field recorder Alan Lomax, along with two colleagues, recorded a banjo player from the Blue Ridge Mountains named Bascom Lamar Lunsford. One of the songs he record...
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Mountain music has deep roots in British Isles from 2019-02-12T20:28:23
The music of the Southern Appalachians is a melting pot of diverse styles and people. Settlers from the British Isles and Germany came here in the 18th century with their string music and balladry,...
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Appalachian dulcimer makes sweet mountain music from 2019-02-04T20:32:59
Think of traditional mountain music and many fans will hear the sweet sounds of the Appalachian or lap dulcimer, which was developed in the Southern Highlands. Fans love it since one lesson can let...
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Cane Mill Road Carries on Deep Gap Legacy from 2018-12-10T16:16:12
Deep Gap, NC, is known around the world as the home of the legendary Doc and Merle Watsons. Now the rising bluegrass band Cane Mill Road is carrying on the legacy. Born in the new millennium, fiddl...
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Primitive Quartet Grew Out of a Fishing Trip from 2018-12-03T18:32:46
The Primitive Quartet began in 1973, when two sets of brothers, Reagan and Larry Riddle and Furman and Norman Wilson, carried a guitar and mandolin with them on a fishing trip to Fontana Lake. The ...
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Brown Mountain Lights Captured in Popular Song from 2018-10-15T18:00:37
In a state known for its wealth of eerie legends, few mysteries are as enduring or as puzzling as the Brown Mountain Lights of western North Carolina where strange glowing orbs have been seen. When...
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George Shuffler Pioneered Cross-Picking Style from 2018-10-09T17:34:54
George Shuffler is best known for the more than twenty years that he spent playing with bluegrass legends Carter and Ralph Stanley. He’s sometimes even referred to as the third Stanley
Brother. ...
Arvil Freeman Plays His Distinctive Fiddle Style from 2018-10-01T16:06:12
Master fiddler Arvil Freeman of Madison County has married elements of old-time and bluegrass in his distinctive “long-bow” style of playing. As a veteran performer and a longtime teacher, Arvil wa...
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Nina Simone Got Her Start in North Carolina from 2018-09-24T17:59:10
Nina Simone became one of the iconic singers of jazz and soul of the 1960s and a strong voice for Civil Rights. She got her start in her hometown of Tryon, N.C, playing piano and singing in her chu...
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Glenn and Lula Bolick Carry On Music, Craft Tradition from 2018-06-13T20:41:09
Glenn and Lula Bolick of Caldwell County are 2018 winners of the N.C. Heritage Award, the state’s highest honor for traditional artists. Lula is a member of the Owens family of Piedmont potters. Gl...
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Marsha Todd Makes Her Mark in Mountain Music from 2018-06-05T19:26:48
Many of today’s outstanding old-time and bluegrass musicians carry on longstanding family traditions. One such artist is multi-instrumentalist and flatfoot dancer Marsha Bowman Todd. A musician al...
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Chester McMillian Is Guitar Legend in Mount Airy from 2018-05-30T16:07:04
Chester McMillian is a legend of old-time guitar in Mount Airy, NC, playing the distinctive Round Peak music of Surry County for decades. Chester grew up in a family of musicians, and started playi...
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Olla Belle Reed Brought Bluegrass to Baltimore from 2018-05-18T19:37:31
Ola Belle Campbell was just a teenager in 1934 when her family moved from Ashe County, NC, to Maryland, but she was already a skilled mountain banjo player and singer. At her first radio gig in 193...
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How Doc Watson Found Success in '60s from 2018-04-16T14:25:11
Doc Watson spent much of the 1950s playing electric guitar in a country and western dance band. In 1960 he switched to acoustic guitar and banjo. Just as the folk music revival was sweeping colleg...
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Doc Watson Recalls Mountain Childhood from 2018-04-03T13:51:59
Arthel Lane Watson, better known as "Doc," grew up on Osborne Mountain in Watauga County, NC. Doc lost his sight to an eye infection before the age of one but he would grow up to become the most ce...
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Clarence 'Tom' Ashley Rediscovered in Folk Revival from 2018-03-26T15:35:26
Clarence “Tom” Ashley, a banjo player and guitarist from Mountain City, Tennessee, got his start in the medicine show circuit in the late 20s, but was “rediscovered” in the Folk Revival of the 196...
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Ray Hicks Made Folktales Come Alive from 2018-03-19T17:40:59
Ray Hicks grew up on a hardscrabble mountain farm on Beech Mountain. From his grandfather, young Hicks learned a dozen Jack tales, part of the rich storytelling tradition of the Appalachians. Stand...
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Frank Proffitt Sang Murder Ballad 'Tom Dooley' from 2018-03-13T17:02:10
In 1938, Frank Proffitt of Beech Mountain recorded the song “Tom Dooley.” The murder ballad tells the true-life tale of a Civil War love triangle that ended in the death of a young Wilkes County, ...
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Charlie Poole Pioneered Piedmont Banjo Style from 2018-03-07T18:43:37
One of the pioneers of country music, Charlie Poole was born in 1892 in Franklinville, a small town in Randolph County, N.C. He played the banjo from an early age, and developed a distinctive three...
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Round Peak Artists Shaped Old-Time Sound from 2018-02-23T18:40:09
Surry County’s Round Peak area, and the surrounding communities between Mount Airy, N.C., and Galax, Va., have shaped the sound of Old-Time music heard across the nation and around the world. Two ...
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What are the Blue Ridge Music Trails? from 2017-12-08T13:43:11
Throughout this series, we’ve invited you to journey down the road with us on the highways
and byways that make up the Blue Ridge Music Trails. But just what and where are these roads
that we...
Breaking Up Christmas from 2017-11-27T19:45:30
In the Blue Ridge, the Christmas season was celebrated for days on end, with gatherings of family and friends, good food, and lots of music. This was especially true in the area known as Round Peak...
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Cherokee Hymnbook Keeps Language Alive from 2017-11-20T17:24:59
In 1821, Sequoyah singlehandedly created a syllabary, or writing system, for his people, the Cherokee Indians. Within a few years, the tribe’s literacy rate was far higher than their white neighbor...
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Junior Appalachian Musicians from 2017-11-16T15:00:11
In 2000, Helen White, a school guidance counselor, founded a music program in the Alleghany County, N.C, schools. She called it Junior Appalachian Musicians—or JAM. The program offered instruction...
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African-American Gospel Music in Appalachia from 2017-11-09T17:01:11
North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains are home to a rich heritage of African-American gospel music in local churches, performed by singers and instrumental musicians who may be professionals, or wh...
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Team Dancing Tradition Thrives in Mountains from 2017-11-02T14:35:37
Haywood County in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains is the heartland of a homegrown dance tradition—team square dancing, and its close relative, team clogging. Sam Love Queen, born in 1889 is o...
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Meet the Rising Stars of Mountain Music from 2017-10-23T19:51:39
The millennial generation has brought new energy and talent to mountain music. Young stars of bluegrass and old-time music such as Josh Goforth, Emma McDowell and Bryan McDowell are doing their nat...
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Hear Surry County's Famous Style at Earle Theatre from 2017-10-10T17:47:21
In the Blue Ridge, every county has its own musical heroes and history. The music of Surry County, N.C., is so popular among old-time music fans worldwide that if you visit a jam session in Barcelo...
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Doc Watson Defined Mountain Music from 2017-09-14T17:40:46
Doc Watson’s signature baritone voice and unique lead bluegrass guitar licks became synonymous with traditional and bluegrass music. Born in Deep Gap, N.C., Doc lost his vision before his first bir...
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Settlers Brought Ancient Ballads to Mountains from 2017-09-05T20:04:05
When English, Irish and Scottish settlers moved into Appalachia, they brought an ancient form of music with them – the ballad. The isolated mountains drew song collectors like Englishman Cecil Sha...
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Brasstown is Hot Bed for Mountain Music from 2017-08-29T18:58:37
Brasstown, in the far southwest corner of North Carolina, is home to the John C. Campbell Folk School founded in 1925. Its founder Olive Dame Campbell collected the music of the region, including b...
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Cherokee Play a Part in Bluegrass from 2017-08-22T14:57:31
For generations, fiddles and banjos have played a role in the music of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. In turn, musicians who are Cherokee, or of Cherokee descent, have helped shape the sound...
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Shaped-Note Singing Thrives in Blue Ridge from 2017-08-11T19:07:19
Shaped-note singing, a new form of sacred music, swept through the Blue Ridge Mountains at the dawn of the 19th century, using triangles, ovals and even half-moons to correspond to the notes of th...
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Kruger Brothers Followed Music From Switzerland from 2017-08-04T18:50:18
Brothers Jens and Uwe Krüger grew up in rural Switzerland, listening to records by North Carolina music legends Doc Watson and Earl Scruggs. They fell in love with the sound and mastered the musi...
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African Roots of the Banjo from 2017-07-31T19:41:52
The roots of the banjo trace directly to West Africa. White Southerners learned to play e...
Where to Find Your Favorite Fiddlers' Convention from 2017-07-24T18:24:38
Fiddlers’ conventions have been making music in the South for over a century. Today you c...
Cherokee Adapt New Musical Traditions to Ancient Heritage from 2017-07-17T15:23:13
The mountains of North Carolina are rich in music traditions, both old and new, but no ot...
Country Music's First Female Stars from 2017-07-10T14:06:33
Samantha Biddix Bumgarner and Eva Smathers Davis hailed from Sylva, North Carolina and ca...
What is Bluegrass? from 2017-07-03T17:31:41
It started in Kentucky but quickly caught on across the Blue
Ridge Mountains. Back in ...
Blues Guitarist Lesley Riddle Shaped Country Music from 2017-06-26T20:08:19
Country music came into the American mainstream with the Carter Family, but A.P. Carter r...
Picking the Blue Ridge Blues from 2017-06-19T17:57:16
When most people think of mountain music, banjos, ballads or bluegrass usually come to mi...
How to Join a Music Jam from 2017-06-12T19:45:13
In the Blue Ridge, you can find people gathered on any day of the week to play mountain m...
What is Old-Time Music? from 2017-06-05T18:58:20
The hills of Western North Carolina are home to traditional Appalachian music...
Earl Scruggs Brought Banjo Style to World from 2017-05-30T14:46:38
Earl perfected the syncopated style of three-finger banjo picking, known as “Scruggs Sty...
Before Mayberry, Griffith's Mount Airy made music from 2017-05-22T17:59:38
Mount Airy was a mecca for old-time music long before Andy Griffith immortalized his home...
Bascom Lamar Lunsford Championed Mountain Music and Dance from 2017-05-15T13:48:07
Celebrated as "the Ministrel of the Appalachians," Bascomb Lamar Lunsford was born in Mad...
Etta Baker Played the Piedmont Blues for 90 Years from 2017-05-08T15:18:09
Etta Baker picked up her rag-time influenced style of fingerpicking at the age of 3 from ...
Sheila Kay Adams Sings the Old Ballads of the North Carolina Mountains from 2017-05-01T21:33:46
Today, the tradition of ballad singing is alive and well in the North Carolina mountains ...
MerleFest Celebrates America’s Finest“Traditional Plus”Music from 2017-04-21T22:26:23
Every April in the North Carolina mountains and foothills, we look forward to MerleFest, ...
Jimmie Rodgers Lands in Asheville from 2017-04-17T15:40:51
In the spring of 1927, Jimmie Rodgers moved to Asheville and honed his craft with live pe...