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Musings on folk, Americana, country, bluegrass and newgrass


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Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival announces full lineup for Fall 2018

It’s not too late to get tickets to the fall Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival of Music & Dance featuring Lettuce, Donna the Buffalo, Yarn, Caleb Caudle, Urban Soil and Shiloh Hill, just to mention a few. Visit https://shakorihillsgrassroots.org/

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Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival of Music & Dance has announced the fall lineup for the event happening Oct. 4 – 7, 2018, on 72 acres outside of Pittsboro, North Carolina, just outside the Triangle. Blue Ridge Outdoor Magazine ranks Shakori Hills as one of the best festivals of 2018.

Lettuce will make a rare North Carolina festival appearance as will the Grammy-nominated Latin group Locos Por Juana.

Festival founders Donna the Buffalo will perform a headlining set Friday night and sets during the weekend with Zydeco elder statesman Preston Frank on accordion. Ryan Montbleau will treat the crowds to a solo set while Consider the Source will play hybrid acoustic.

Meanwhile, Durham-native G Yamazawa, a rapper and poet whose song “North Cack” rose to No. 3 on Spotify’s “Viral 50” chart last year, will make his first visit to Shakori Hills, as will rising Americana star Sierra Ferrell. 

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Listen Up: You don’t want to miss N.C. State Fair’s amazing 2018 musical lineup

The North Carolina State Fair always sports a great music lineup and this year is no exception. Its “Homegrown Music Fest” concert series features 11 days, three stages and 117 performances from Oct. 11-21. My advice is that while you’ll certainly want to catch some of the headliners — Raleigh’s own American Aquarium, the War and Treaty, New Reveille, Summer Brooke and the Mountain Faith Band, RaeLynn and Bucky Covington — make sure you catch some of the lesser-known acts on the Waterfall andHeritage Circle Bluegrass stages.

It wasn’t that many years ago that I discovered country, rock superstar singer-songwriter Eric Church, who as you may recall is a North Carolina native, playing for a small crowd at the fairgrounds’ Dorton Arena. Tickets were $5 because at the time you had to pay extra for concert tickets. Good luck finding a $5 or even $50 ticket to one of Church’s shows today.

Dorton Arena shows begin at 7:30 p.m. each night. Lineup for the show begins no earlier than 6 p.m. and doors are at 7 p.m. Each show is free with State Fair admission, and seating in the arena is first-come, first-served general admission.

I recommend making time to see Jack the Radio, the Pinkerton Raid, Katie Basden, Jump Mountain, David Childers, Big Fat Gap and Carolina Line Bluegrass Band among many others too numerous to list on the Waterfall and Heritage Circle Bluegrass stages.

For specific show times visit http://www.ncstatefair.org/2018/Attractions/HomegrownMusic.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 


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CANCELLED Classic Country Throwdown featuring Tracy Lawrence, Phil Vassar and Little Texas set for Booth Amphitheatre Oct. 4

From the good folks over at Cary, North Carolina’s Booth Amphitheatre, this event has been cancelled. If you have tickets contact the Box Office at www.boothamphitheatre.com.

The show announcements just keep coming with a Classic Country Throwdown at Cary’s Booth Amphitheatre on Thursday, Oct. 4, 2018. Continue reading →


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Balsam Range, First Ladies of Bluegrass on a roll at 2018 IBMA Awards

If bluegrass music was a sport, the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA)’s annual awards night would be considered the industry’s All-Star game.

Held Thursday, Sept. 27, as part of IBMA’s 2018 annual weeklong business conference and Wide Open Bluegrass, the party celebrating the best in individual and band achievement for the year was hosted by Hot Rize, the first group to ever win the coveted entertainer of the year award. Continue reading →


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Kristin Scott Benson of The Grascals only second woman to win Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass

Award-winning banjoist Kristin Scott Benson of The Grascals has won yet another award and this one comes with $50,000 and a piece of original artwork by Eric Fischl!

Benson is the 2018 recipient of the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, Mountain Home Music Company announced on Monday, Sept. 24, which coincided with the kick off of the International Bluegrass Music Association’s annual Business Conference and World of Bluegrass event in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. Continue reading →


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Women poised to dominate 2018 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) awards

In 2017, Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard were inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Hall of Fame. With the exception of women who were part of a band, and usually a family band, ie. the famous Carter Family, who were inducted in 2001, only one other woman — Louise Scruggs in 2010 — has received solo recognition by the hall of fame organizers since 1991. And this week, songwriter Dixie Hall will be inducted as the fourth.

Let’s face it. Bluegrass has been a good old boys genre since Bill Monroe picked up a mandolin, Louise’s husband Earl Scruggs met Lester Flatt and the Stanley Brothers became the Clinch Mountain Boys. But as Bob Dylan once wrote, “the times they are a changin.'”

Fast forward to 2016, when Sierra Hull and Becky Buller became the first women to win Instrumental Performers of the Year awards for mandolin and fiddle, respectively. Hull came out on top in the same category in 2017, and Molly Tuttle, who appears poised to be among the next female superstars of bluegrass, won Instrumental Performer of the Year for her guitar picking prowess — the first woman to ever top that particular chart. Continue reading →


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The Kruger Brothers’ Carolina in the Fall 2018 announces expanded lineup

It’s looking like a beautiful weekend for The Kruger Brothers’ festival, Carolina in the Fall, featuring a fabulous lineup of some of my personal favorites — Jim Lauderdale, Front Country, Humming House, The Kruger Brothers, The Steel Wheels, Fireside Collective, Hank, Pattie and the Current and Will Easter — so make sure you get on out there and check it out!

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This just in from the good folks over at Carolina in the Fall Music and Food Festival:

The fourth annual Carolina in the Fall Music and Food Festival set for Sept. 21-22, 2018, in downtown Wilkesboro, North Carolina, has expanded its powerful lineup of entertainment to include The Secret Sisters, Jim Lauderdale, Front Country and Humming House, among others. These artists will join festival hosts The Kruger Brothers and The Steel Wheels, The Roosevelts, Fireside Collective, The Contenders, Snyder Family Band, The Arcadian Wild, Nikki Talley and more than 100 other musicians, chefs, vintners and craft beer brewers from the region.

The complete lineup is available online at www.carolinainthefall.org.

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OCMS’s Ketch Secor will debut children’s book, ‘Lorraine: The Girl Who Sang the Storm Away,’ on Oct. 2, 2018

You may recognize Ketch Secor as the frontman and founding member of Grand Ole Opry and festival-favorite Old Crow Medicine Show. But did you know that the Grammy-award winner is also an author?

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The Shindig returns to Clayton, N.C., on Nov. 3 featuring Scythian, Yarn

The Shindig, “Music For Your Beers,” returns Nov. 3, 2018, to Clayton, North Carolina. This event always features a great musical lineup and this year is no exception.

More than 25 craft beers will be available along with nine bands, including Scythian, Yarn, Jon Stickley Trio, Fireside Collective, Dangermuffin, and Forlorn Strangers, on two stages.

General admission is free and taster tickets to get beer samples in the VIP tent are available at www.theshindig.net.