Tickets and camping sales are a whirlwind on Early Bird launch day set for Dec. 6 beginning at 10 a.m. for the 10th annual Red Wing Roots Music Festival.
Here are a few reminders before it all begins: We have only 1,000 Early Bird tickets and a limited number of Premium RV Campsites available. (Only one Premium campsite per order.) These two hot items move fast! As soon as the Early Bird tickets run out, Tier 2 tickets will automatically open. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out all of the great camping options before tomorrow. We can’t wait to see you in June!
Each year the festival runs with the help of a fantastic group of volunteers! We would love to have you join us this summer. Learn more about volunteer opportunities for the 10th annual Red Wing Roots Music Festival. Volunteer applications open tomorrow!
WILKESBORO, NORTH CAROLINA — MerleFest, presented by Window World, has just added another huge list of performers to its star-studded 2023 lineup, which includes headliners The Avett Brothers and Maren Morris.
Set for April 27-30, 2023, on the campus of Wilkes Community College, MerleFest attendees will have the chance to see boogie-rock masters Little Feat, next-generation guitar slinger Marcus King, living country music legend Tanya Tucker, Miko Marks’ blend of country, blues, southern rock and gospel and many more take to the festival’s multiple weekend stages.
In addition, the following bands and artists have ALSO been added to the MerleFest 2023 lineup: AJ Lee & Blue Summit, Alison Brown, Andy Cohen, Anna Lynch, Bee Taylor, Brothers Comatose, Chris Jones & The Night Drivers, Cole Chaney, Compton & Newberry, Dom Flemons, I Draw Slow, Lightnin’ Wells, The Local Honeys, Nigel Wearne, Stillhouse Junkies, Taylor Rae, Terry Baucom’s Dukes of Drive, Todd Albright, Tommy Prine, Yasmin Williams and The Youngers.
These newly-added artists will join MerleFest’s previously announced lineup: The Avett Brothers, Maren Morris, Black Opry Revue, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Peter Rowan, Andy May, Banknotes, Carol Rifkin, Charles Welch, Donna the Buffalo, Jack Lawrence, Jeff Little Trio, Jim Lauderdale, Joe Smothers, Kruger Brothers, Laura Boosinger, The Local Boys, Mark Bumgarner, Mitch Greenhill & Mitch’s Kitchen, Pete & Joan Wernick, Presley Barker, Roy Book Binder, Scythian, T. Michael Coleman, The InterACTive Theater of Jef, The Waybacks, Tony Williamson and Wayne Henderson.
2023 marks MerleFest’s 35th festival and will honor Doc Watson’s 100th birthday year. To celebrate the historic milestone event, organizers intend to feature MerleFest’s unique history and present unique collaborations to honor the festival’s founding folk icon. From the flatbed trailer stage at the 1988 Eddy Merle Watson Memorial Festival to today, and looking into the future, MerleFest will continue to draw fans from all over the world to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains each spring to make music, moments and memories together.
Want to be a vendor or volunteer? Sign up at MerleFest.org, which is where you can also buy tickets. Just a friendly reminder: The last day ticket orders will be mailed before the holiday break will be Dec. 20. Shipping tickets will resume on Jan. 3, 2023.
RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA — Christmas is coming early to the North Carolina Museum of History, which is celebrating its 120th birthday on Saturday, Dec. 3.
In honor of the occasion, the museum is featuring free admission all day to its current ticketed exhibit “The Power of Women in Country Music.” And from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. there will be live on-site broadcasting from the Triangle’s country music station WQDR, specially themed treats, a special birthday promotion in the Museum Shop, and more, according to the museum’s website.
From international superstars, including Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Rosanne Cash, Shania Twain and Taylor Swift, to contemporary North Carolina artists, such as Rhiannon Giddens, Rissi Palmer and Kasey Tyndall, “The Power of Women in Country Music,” is on loan from the GRAMMY Museum® in Los Angeles. The exhibit highlights the past, present and future of country music’s greatest female trailblazers.
Artifacts include Swift’s white “Mean” dress and banjo as well as a replication of the wooden cabin the pop star performed in front of at the 2021 Grammy awards. Palmer’s microphone she uses on her podcast, “Color Me Country.”
The exhibit opened to rave reviews on Oct. 28 and runs through Feb. 26, 2023. “This empowering exhibition will be amplified with a special concert series, author series, family events and activities, and much more,” the museum website states.
One of the concerts, Southern Songbirds: Alice Gerrard and Friends, is free and set for 3 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 11, at the museum. “Gerrard will join us with special guests for a screening of her biopic, “You Gave Me a Song,” followed by a short performance and Q & A with the artist. Gerrard will be joined by Tatiana Hargreaves and Dashawn Hickman. This event will be emceed by legendary North Carolina native Jim Lauderdale,” the museum stated in an email.
RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA — Fans of the North Carolina duo, Chatham Rabbits, have a chance to hear some new music at 7 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 4, at the Lincoln Theatre in downtown Raleigh.
“An Evening with Chatham Rabbits” is part of the group’s album-release tour for “If You See Me Riding By,” their third full-length studio album.
Co-written during the height of the pandemic and honed through the reflection and challenges the crisis demanded, this album is absolutely a piece of pandemic art, according to the RALToday event listing. “If You See Me Riding By” was recorded at both Bedtown Studios (Watchhouse, Libby Rodenbough) and Betty’s (Sylvan Esso, Dead Tongues) with producer Saman Khoujinian.
Tickets start at $19.50 and can be purchased at this link.
Tickets on sale and volunteer opportunities are available
WILKESBORO, N.C. — It’s the most wonderful time of the year … and I’m not talking about the upcoming holidays. Instead, this is the season for finding out who will be performing at next year’s live music festivals and this week’s initial 35th edition of MerleFest‘s lineup announcement for April 27-30, 2023, did not disappoint.
Country music sensation Maren Morris is set to make her MerleFest debut on the campus of Wilkes Community College on Saturday along with the Black Opry Revue who will hit the stage on Friday. And the wildly popular North Carolina natives The Avett Brothers, who first performed at MerleFest in 2004 and are one of the most requested performers in the festival’s history, are set to return on Friday at the festival, which will also honor Doc Watson’s 100th birthday year.
To celebrate the historic milestone event, organizers intend to feature MerleFest’s unique history and present unique collaborations to honor the festival’s founding folk icon. From the flatbed trailer stage at the 1988 Eddy Merle Watson Memorial Festival to today, and looking into the future, MerleFest, which has served as the unofficial kickoff of the annual outdoor festival season, is an annual homecoming of musicians and music fans. Since its inception, the festival has drawn fans from all over the world to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains each spring to make music, moments and memories together.
Also joining the lineup, will be award-winning MerleFest veterans Sam Bush,Jerry Douglas, Peter Rowan, Jim Lauderdale and Scythian, in addition to many, many more including:
If you missed them at MerleFest earlier this year, fans of “Mr. Bojangles” and “Fishin’ In the Dark” can catch Americana’s original band — the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band — in Durham at the Carolina Theatre on Sunday, Nov. 6.
From the band’s bio: Many veteran bands trade on nostalgia, on replication of past glories, and on recycled emotions from younger, more carefree days.
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band trades on a mix of reimagined classics and compelling newer works. The group formed in 1966 as a Long Beach, California jug band, scored its first charting single in 1967, and embarked on a self-propelled ride through folk, country, rock ‘n’ roll, pop, bluegrass, and the amalgam now known as “Americana.” The first major hit came in 1971 with the epic “Mr. Bojangles,” which, along with insistent support from banjo master Earl Scruggs, opened doors in Nashville. Behind those doors were Earl Scruggs, Roy Acuff, Doc Watson, Mother Maybelle Carter, Jimmy Martin, and others who would collaborate on a multi-artist, multi-generational, three-disc 1972 masterpiece: “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” went triple Platinum, spawned two later volumes and wound up in the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Was this a cutting-edge combo or a group of revivalists? Was the goal rebellion or musical piety? Yes, to all these things. In the 1980s, the Dirt Band reeled off 15 straight Top 10 country hits, including chart-toppers “Long Hard Road (The Sharecropper’s Dream),” “Modern Day Romance,” and “Fishin’ in the Dark (co-written by Jim Photoglo, who would join the band in the second decade of the new century). 1989 brought a second “Circle” album, this one featuring singer-songwriter talents including John Prine, Rosanne Cash and John Hiatt and garnering two Grammy awards for the band (it later won another, for a collaboration with Earl Scruggs and other fine folks). Circle II also won the Country Music Association’s Album of the Year prize. “Circle III” was released in 2003, featuring collaborations with Johnny Cash, Dwight Yoakam, Emmylou Harris, Taj Mahal and more.
In May, the band released “Dirt Does Dylan,” just a few years after the Dirt Band’s Jeff Hanna paid $4 to see Bob Dylan play at his high school auditorium in Long Beach, California. The fire lit inside of Hanna that night still burns as strong as ever. Hanna and his Dirt Band bandmates have had quite a career of their own since then, introducing folk, bluegrass,and country music—what would later be termed “Americana”—to a whole new generation of fans.
Their latest effort, however, is a full-circle return with “Dirt Does Dylan,” a 10-track album highlighting some of the gems from Dylan’s vast catalog with the help of three new band members: fiddle specialist Ross Holmes; singer-songwriter and bass player Photoglo; and Dirt Band founder Jeff Hanna’s son, the absurdly talented singer and guitarist Jaime Hanna.
Produced and recorded by Ray Kennedy at Room & Board Studio in Nashville, Tennessee, “Dirt Does Dylan” finds a generation-spanning Dirt Band paying an appropriately great tribute to arguably the greatest songwriter of the 20th century with the help of friends like Jason Isbell, The War & Treaty, Steve Earle and Rosanne Cash, to name a few.
For more information on Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and “Dirt Does Dylan,” visit nittygritty.com.
Into the Fog to take the stage at the N.C. State Fair after a whirlwind summer and winning the Jam In the Van contest in Austin, Texas.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This post originally appeared in the The Wake Weekly newspaper.
RALEIGH — Gigs ranging from their recent appearances at the 10th annual International Bluegrass Music Association World of Bluegrass conference and festival in Raleigh to OFest in Summerfield on Oct. 16 to venues up and down the East Coast are keeping the band busy, says Wake Forest native Brian Stephenson, who plays guitar and sings for the fledgling group he helped found four years ago.
“We’re like a rock show in disguise,” Stephenson said during an interview at IBMA. “We like the rowdy crowds. We feed off the energy.”
You can catch their progressive funky take on bluegrass at the N.C. State Fair — Heritage Circle stage on Oct. 18 where they will play five sets at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.
With its members having various backgrounds ranging from bluegrass, country, rock to funk, Into The Fog creates a musical melting pot of sounds in an acoustic/newgrass setting. The band is made up of Stephenson (acoustic guitar, vocals), Winston Mitchell (mandolin, vocals), Derek Lane (bass, vocals) and Connor Kozlosky (electric guitar, vocals.)
Originally formed in Wilmington, Into The Fog immediately hit the ground running as a band by heading across the country to compete at the 2018 Telluride Bluegrass Festival Band Competition only a few months after coming together. That cross-country trip was recorded by friend of the band and videographer Mason Godwin in his documentary, “Band #7: The Ride to Telluride.”
But their musical journey hasn’t been all smooth sailing.
“We were really just coming together as a band when we went out to the Telluride (Colorado) Bluegrass Festival in 2017 to compete in its annual band competition,” Stephenson explained after playing a set on the Hillside Stage at the recent 2021 MerleFest music festival in Wilkesboro. “We didn’t win the competition, unfortunately, and, then, well, you know, COVID.”
As COVID restrictions slowly diminished, the band got back to work playing as much as they could around North Carolina, becoming a mainstay at more than 30 different breweries.
After the band’s pandemic-induced hiatus, the boys, who hail mainly from and around the Triangle, re-emerged as the winners of the coveted MerleFest Band Competition in 2021.
Into The Fog started to pick up momentum, exchanging brewery gigs for music venues and festivals with opportunities to play at Shakori Hills, The Big What, Groove in the Garden, RoosterWalk, FloydFest, Front Porch Fest and the N.C. Homegrown Music Festival along with opening slots for national touring acts Sam Bush, Larry Keel, Ghost of Paul Revere and Jon Stickley Trio.
“We’ve been staying really busy,” Stephenson said.
In March, the band traveled to Austin, Texas, to record a Jam in the Van session (www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eL8FNVLVOw) with the help of Mason Via of Old Crow Medicine Show, who flew out to play guitar for the session after Stephenson broke his arm. The band went on to win the competition, thanks in no small part to the help of Via, Stephenson said.
“We called him the day before and we said if we pay for your flight, can you come and play with us?,” he said. “We had one day of practice for the Jam in the Van session and we won!”
Into The Fog solidified their sound further with their 14-track sophomore album “Runnin’ Blind and Chasin’ Time,” released in May of 2021.
“We feel good about playing in Raleigh and Wilmington, but now we’re looking to branch out and really expand our footprint,” Stephenson said. “That’s our next goal.”
On Saturday, Oct. 22, the Town of Cary will present a free concert by Southern Avenue at 7 p.m. on the site of the old library (across from the Cotton House Brewery). In addition to the concert, there will be food and drinks available for purchase from local vendors.
Memphis-based, GRAMMY®-nominated Southern Avenue inked their first record deal with legendary Stax Records in 2016. The first Memphis band signed to Stax in over 40 years, their self-titled debut was an immediate phenomenon, reaching #1 on iTunes’ “Top Blues Albums” chart before being honored with the 2018 Blues Music Award for “Best Emerging Artist Album.” 2019’s KEEP ON proved an even greater success, debuting among the top 5 on Billboard’s “Top Blues Albums” chart amidst worldwide critical acclaim, ultimately earning Southern Avenue their first GRAMMY® Award nomination, for “Best Contemporary Blues Album.”
In addition to the early success that the band has had with their recordings, they have also found a home on the road. The band has performed in 15 countries on three continents and averages over 150 shows in a typical year, making the group one of the most sought-after live performance experiences. Their high-energy shows have captivated audiences around the globe, making this eclectic group a must-see at venues and festivals alike.
WILKESBORO, NORTH CAROLINA — MerleFest, presented by Window World, is planning a 35th celebration on April 27-30, 2023, and a 100th heavenly birthday celebration for Doc Watson.
MerleFest started in 1988 as a fundraiser for the Garden of the Senses on Wilkes Community College to memorialize world-renowned flat picker Eddy Merle Watson, Doc Watson’s son. In keeping with the MerleFest traditions, 2023 will offer jams honoring MerleFest’s past, present and future.
The celebration also aligns with the late Doc Watson’s 100th heavenly birthday. The festival plans to celebrate the life of Doc Watson and the history of MerleFest both visually and musically through vintage videos and artist collaborations.
MerleFest, an annual homecoming of musicians and music fans, occurs on the campus of Wilkes Community College.
Volunteers may choose to work a specific number of days or the entire four-day festival. In exchange for working a four-hour shift, volunteers will receive free entry into the festival for that day, free volunteer parking and shuttle, and a 10% discount on camping at the River’s Edge Campground.
We will begin accepting online applications for its popular volunteer program on Oct. 1. Those who are interested in volunteering can apply online at www.merlefest.org/volunteer.
Additional information about MerleFest 2023 can be found at www.merlefest.org.
The. 2022 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA)’s Bluegrass Music Awards were announced on Thursday, Sept. 29, amid three-plus hours of performances ranging from bluegrass royalty to newcomers held at the Duke Energy Performing Arts Center in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina.
Both nominees and winners were chosen by the professional voting membership of the IBMA.
And the winners are…
Mandolin Player of the Year – Sierra Hull
Bass Player of the Year – Jason Moore
Instrumental Recording of the Year – “Vertigo” – Béla Fleck featuring Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Bryan Sutton (artists); Béla Fleck (writer); Béla Fleck (producer); Renew Records (label)
Gospel Recording of the Year – “In the Sweet By and By” –Dolly Parton with Carl Jackson, Larry Cordle, Bradley Walker, and Jerry Salley (artists); S. Fillmore Bennett/Joseph Webster (writers); Jerry Salley; (producer), Billy Blue Records (label)
Collaborative Recording of the Year – “In the Sweet By and By” –Dolly Parton with Carl Jackson, Larry Cordle, Bradley Walker, and Jerry Salley (artists); S. Fillmore Bennett/Joseph Webster (writers); Jerry Salley; (producer), Billy Blue Records (label)
Fiddle Player of the Year – Bronwyn Keith-Hynes
Banjo Player of the Year – Béla Fleck
Guitar Player of the Year – Cody Kilby
Resophonic Guitar Player of the Year – Justin Moses
Male Vocalist of the Year – Del McCoury
Female Vocalist of the Year – Molly Tuttle
Vocal Group of the Year – Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver
Song of the Year – “Red Daisy” – Billy Strings (artist); Jarrod Walker/Christian Ward (writers); Rounder Records (label); Jonathan Wilson/Billy Strings (producers)
Instrumental Group of the Year – Béla Fleck’s My Bluegrass Heart
New Artist of the Year – Rick Faris
Album of the Year – Béla Fleck’s “My Bluegrass Heart”
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