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

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.

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 the familiar do-re-mi-fal-sol musical scale. In the mountains of North Carolina, shaped note singing still thrives in many communities. The Etowah singing, near Hendersonville, has been going on for more than a 100 years, and is held in May and September. In Canton, singers gather at the Morning Star Methodist Church on Old Folks Day, the second Sunday in September.

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 music, playing with bassist Joel Landsberg. Now the Krugers make their home in the Blue Ridge Mountains, playing and touring and teaching younger students.

The roots of the banjo trace directly to West Africa. White Southerners learned to play early gourd banjos, probably built from the enslaved Africans' memories. The banjo was popularized in the 19th century by minstrel shows. Though it seemed close to disappearing in the late 20th century, the African-American banjo tradition has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, led by such young artists as Rhiannon Giddens, Dom Flemons, Jerron Paxton, and Amythyst Kiah.

Fiddlers’ conventions have been making music in the South for over a century. Today you can find some of the very best fiddlers’ conventions here in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Since 1972, musicians have gathered in Surry County the first weekend in June, for the world-famous Mount Airy Bluegrass and Old-Time Fiddlers’ Convention.

The mountains of North Carolina are rich in music traditions, both old and new, but no other musical community’s roots reach as far back in this region’s heritage as those of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians. To their ancient ceremonial music, the Cherokee have added new traditions in bluegrass, old-time and gospel music.

Samantha Biddix Bumgarner and Eva Smathers Davis hailed from Sylva, North Carolina and caught the attention of Columbia Records at the dawn of the country music record industry. In 1939, Bumgarner traveled to Washington DC with Bascom Lamar Lunsford to play for President Roosevelt and the Queen of England.

It started in Kentucky but quickly caught on across the Blue

Ridge Mountains. Back in the ‘40s and '50s, musicians started playing their old instruments in new ways with lots of giddy-up. From Earl Scruggs to Steep Canyon Rangers, North Carolina has laid claim to the top talents in blistering bluegrass music.

Country music came into the American mainstream with the Carter Family, but A.P. Carter relied heavily on African-American blues guitarist Lesley Riddle of Yancey County, N.C. In 1927, Lesley met A.P. in Bristol, Tenn. and helped the Carters collect the songs across Appalachia that would become country music classics. Now Burnsville pays tribute to the blues musician with annual Riddlefest.

When most people think of mountain music, banjos, ballads or bluegrass usually come to mind, but the Blue Ridge is home to a rich and distinctive blues tradition that dates back generations, and is still played today.