Down The Road On The Blue Ridge Music Trails Of North Carolina

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. Glenn grew up in a family whose heritage of music-making, sawmilling, and storytelling goes back generations. He carries on all three arts today, in addition to the pottery-making that he learned from Lula and her family. The "Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina" podcast highlights bluegrass and old-time music stories, performers, and traditions across the mountain and foothills counties of Western North Carolina. Hosted by Laura Boosinger and produced by Kim Clark of WNCW-FM, the podcast is a joint effort of the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area , the North Carolina Arts Council , and WNCW-FM.

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 all her life, Marsha is one of the leading lights of the legendary musical community of Mount Airy, North Carolina. The "Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina" podcast highlights bluegrass and old-time music stories, performers, and traditions across the mountain and foothills counties of Western North Carolina. Hosted by Laura Boosinger and produced by Kim Clark of WNCW-FM, the podcast is a joint effort of the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area , the North Carolina Arts Council , and WNCW 88.7 FM.

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 celebrated Appalachian musician ever. Doc talked about his childhood in an interview with David Holt , included on the 2001 Legacy box set.

Clarence “Tom” Ashley , a banjo player and guitarist from Mountain City, Tennessee, got his start in the medicine show circuit in the late 20s and 30s, but was “rediscovered” in the Folk Revival of the 1960s. Ashley’s famous solo recordings are probably “Dark Holler Blues” and its flip-side, “The Coo-Coo Bird,” both eerie clawhammer banjo performances recorded in late October of 1929. In the 1960s Ashley and his friends began to record with the addition of Doc Watson, then at the beginning of his career. Their record on the Folkways label, Old-Time Music at Clarence Ashley’s , remains a classic of early revival-era old-time music.

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. Standing nearly seven feet tall and illustrating his stories with animated expressions and gestures, Hicks was naturally engaging teller of tales. Alan Lomax once called him “the greatest of all American folktale tellers.” Ray Hicks received the National Heritage Award in 1983.

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, N.C., woman named Laura Foster, and the hanging of Tom Dula for her murder. Twenty years later, the Kingston Trio recorded their own version, helping launch the Folk Revival of the 1960s. The album sold more than 3 million copies. Soon people all across the country were singing this song from the North Carolina hills.

One of the pioneers of country music, Charlie Poole was born in 1892 in Franklinville, a small town in Randolph County, NC. He played the banjo from an early age, and developed a distinctive three-finger style to compensate for a baseball injury. Poole was famous for his rough and rowdy ways, and you can hear the voice of experience when he sings songs of drinking and rambling. With his band the North Carolina Ramblers he made dozens of records between 1925 and 1930, mostly for Columbia Records.

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 of the best-known members of this tradition were Tommy Jarrell and Fred Cockerham . During the old-time music revival of the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, young musicians from all over visited Tommy and Fred and their fellow Round Peak artists, learning their tunes and enjoying their warm welcome.

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’re traveling? The music of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains includes old-time string band music and bluegrass, blues, ballads, and gospel traditions, and the ancient songs and instrumental music of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians. The Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina brings recognition to hundreds of traditional music venue and event held year-round in Western North Carolina.

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, around Mount Airy, North Carolina, and Galax, Virginia. The tradition was called Breaking up Christmas, and December 25th was just the beginning.

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 neighbors. First published in 1829, the Cherokee Hymnbook contained the lyrics to sacred songs, written in Cherokee, using Sequoyah’s syllabary. It was a groundbreaking achievement, created for an audience who could both read the Cherokee language and sing by heart the tunes that went with the lyrics. Nearly two centuries later, in 2014, a new edition of the Cherokee Hymnbook was published— keeping alive both the language and the sacred music.

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 in the traditional music of the mountains. To say that JAM has been a success would be almost as big an understatement as saying that Bill Monroe had something to do with bluegrass. Now over a dozen JAM programs (also known as Traditional Arts Programs for Students, or TAPS) play in the mountains of North Carolina. Rising stars from JAM programs are changing the face of traditional music festivals across the region.

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 who may simply love to lift their voices in Sunday worship. One such place is Texana, a historic African-American community in Cherokee County in the state’s southwestern-most corner. Texana has a longstanding gospel music tradition, associated especially with Mount Zion Baptist Church.

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 often credited with being the founding father of this tradition. His Soco Gap Dancers performed for President Roosevelt and the Queen of England in 1939. You can catch the best of team dancing at the Maggie Valley Stompin' Ground , the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville, Mars Hill University in Madison County, and many other festivals across the region.

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 native North Carolina proud. And the generation younger than the millennials — Generation Z —is showing every bit as much promise to carry Blue Ridge musical traditions into the future. Among them are fiddlers Lillian Chase and Rhiannon Ramsey and flatpicking guitarist Presley Barker.

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 Barcelona or Tokyo, you’re likely to hear a fiddler play “Sally Ann” or “Breaking Up Christmas” in the Surry County style. And you can hear Surry’s style firsthand at the Historic Earle Theatre , in downtown Mount Airy.

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 birthday but never let his blindness slow him down, learning ballads and teaching himself harmonica, banjo and guitar. Since his death in 2012, Doc remains the most highly respected flat-pick guitar player in the history of traditional American music.

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 Sharp. In Madison County, Sharp collected several hundred songs – including 70 from Jane Hicks Gentry from Hot Springs.

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 ballads and fiddle tunes. Today, people from all over the world travel to the Folk School to begin their day with Morningsong and attend classes in everything from mandolin playing to blacksmithing. Evening entertainment includes Southern Mountain Square Dance, jams and concerts.

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 of bluegrass and old-time music.