Well, 15 years ago this past weekend, I spontaneously bolted from Upstate New York straight to northern Maine to attend Phish’s “IT Festival.” 

A lifelong fan of the beloved jam-rock act, who was raised in the Champlain Valley of New York and Vermont (home base of the band), it was my first time seeing them in all their melodic glory. I was 18 years old that summer of 2003. Just graduated high school, spending the summer working front desk and maintenance at my aunt and uncle’s motel in downtown Lake Placid, New York. 

Each year, one of the highlights of the 10-day Folkmoot Festival is the Parade of Nations. This year, 10 groups from across the globe walked down Waynesville’s Main Street, stopping at the Historic Haywood County Courthouse to perform for local dignitaries.

They just don’t make’em like they used to.

That adage is the pure, honest truth when applied to the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival. In a staggering career of massive mainstream success that only lasted five years (1968-1972), the rock juggernaut produced endless pop culture radio staples aimed squarely at doing two specific things — making you get up and dance, all while opening your eyes and ears to social progress and injustice in our world.

Folkmoot International Festival is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year by introducing some new events during the 10-day cultural exchange and revamping its much-loved traditions. 

• Bringing the world to Western NC
• Folkmoot guides play critical role
• Meet the groups of Folkmoot
• Sunday Soiree brings flavor to Folkmoot
• Schedule of events

In an era when rock-n-roll has seemingly taken a backseat to hip-hop and electronic acts — on the radio and on the charts — it’s refreshing to come across such a finely-tuned entity like The Orange Constant.

At 63, Ricky Skaggs has spent just about 58 of those years completely enamored and immersed in that singular “high, lonesome sound” at the heart of bluegrass music. 

Given a mandolin at the age of 5, a year later he was onstage playing alongside Bill Monroe, the “Father of Bluegrass,” only to find himself at age 7 on a nationally televised variety show plucking with the likes of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. As a teenager, he opened for, and eventually was invited to join Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys, following that up a few years later with stints in The Country Gentlemen and J.D. Crowe’s The New South. 

As the music capital of the world, the bright lights of Nashville have always been a tough place to make it as a band, let alone as a songwriter. But, that mere fact is why so many talented acts from seemingly every corner of the globe descend upon the bustling Tennessee metropolis — simply, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. 

Ten years into his tenure with Balsam Range, Tim Surrett can only shake his head.

“The most amazing factor is that somebody hasn’t gotten killed in 10 years,” he chuckled. “It’s amazing because every band in the world is one bad weekend from nonexistence. We’ve been through a lot, ups and downs, frustrations and traveling distances, and it’s still relevant after 10 years. I don’t know how long that will last, but it’s cool to me that it’s still top-shelf relevant.”

Over the last few years, guitarist Trey Hensley and dobroist Rob Ickes have crisscrossed the country with their unique brand of bluegrass, where the lines tend to blur slightly into the realms of Americana and classic country music. 

Fifteen-time “Dobro Player of the Year” by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA), Ickes was a founding member of Blue Highway, a pillar of the the genre over the last quarter-century. And with Hensley, you have someone who performed on the Grand Ole Opry alongside Marty Stuart and Earl Scruggs at the age of 11, only to release his debut album and also find himself pickin’-n-grinnin’ with the late Johnny & June Carter Cash just a year later. 

Can there be a sadder sight than a man in his sixties sitting in a garden with tears dribbling down his cheeks?

But there I was on a gorgeous morning in June, sitting in a chair on the patio of my daughter’s house, blinking through a misty saline prism and leaking water like a broken spigot.