Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina

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, shaping the sounds.

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 you strum out simple melodies.

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, fiddler and mandolinist Liam Purcell immersed in mountain music through the after school Junior Appalachian Musicians program. As teenagers, Liam joined forces with Tray Wellington, a banjo player from Jefferson. They are joined by two more rising stars of mountain music, bass player Eliot Smith of Watauga County and Southwest Virginia guitarist Casey Lewis.

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 boys all sang at home and in church, but that night in Graham County was when they first sang in four-part harmony. After the fishing trip, with the encouragement of their parents and pastor, they began to sing together at area churches. They ultimately called themselves the Primitive Quartet, in honor of the old-time gospel singing that inspires them. They host the Hominy Valley Homecoming every Fourth of July weekend, and afternoon Fall Color Singing gospel concerts on October weekends at Hominy Valley Singing Grounds in Candler.

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 the early country music star Scotty Wiseman was growing up in the North Carolina mountains, his uncle told him one version of the legend. The lights were said to come from a lantern carried by the ghost of an enslaved man, searching for his master lost on the mountain. In the 1940s, Scotty wrote his song “Brown Mountain Light." The song took off when South Carolina singer Tommy Faile performed it on Arthur Smith's “Carolina Calling” show on Charlotte's WBTV.

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. George’s skill as a harmony singer enabled the band to perform hair-raising songs as a vocal trio, and his instrumental contributions, both on the bass and guitar, forever changed the sound of bluegrass music.
Shuffler pioneered a guitar playing technique known as cross-picking.

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 was honored with the 2018 North Carolina Heritage Award, the state’s highest honor for traditional artists.

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 church choir.

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.

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, N.C.