This must be the place

It pushed me back a couple of feet.

High On A Hilltop: Yonder Mountain String Band to headline Canton Labor Day

Where to from here?

It’s the lingering question within bluegrass and string circles nowadays. Amid the traditional pickers and grinners, there is an urgency arising in recent years, one that wonders just what will happen to the beloved, deeply held music once the last of the elder statesmen vanish.

This must be the place

It’s a feeling rather than an attitude.

You can go your own way

From the ashes comes the rebirth. 

In all my travels as a journalist, and as a music lover, one of the hardest things to witness is when a band you deeply enjoy decides to part ways. Case-in-point, about two or so years ago, Owner of the Sun, an Atlanta-based Americana/rock act, blew into Western North Carolina.

This must be the place

As I enter my fifth year living and thriving here in Western North Carolina, I’m also sliding into a space of reference and observation where I can now compare and contrast those subjects I continually cross paths with throughout my travels. 

Of which, I find myself running around in numerous musical circles, from Asheville to Franklin, Hot Springs to Murphy. And when you’re writing about all of these talented and unique acts, one thing sticks out — how far they’ve come.

Folkmoot moments

Peru: We travel to different countries. It’s our fifth festival this year, already two in France. We like a lot of the people, so friendly. The people is really friendly, the place is really beautiful. We think you have a different city not like other festivals and different in this part of the country, and we love it so much.

Folkmoot dance party at Asheville’s Orange Peel gives a peek below the cultural waterline

After talking with staff, volunteers and last year’s groups, Folkmoot Executive Director Angie Schwab decided that this year, she wanted to give performers more of a chance to experience contemporary American culture.

Sam Love Queen and the values of Folkmoot

In May, the auditorium in the Folkmoot Friendship Center was dedicated to a man instrumental in establishing Waynesville and its environs as one of the most important centers of folk culture in the nation.

Faith alone: Ugandan group changes lives through performance

Just prior to the 2016 Folkmoot Wanderlust Gala, Folkmoot staff, sound technicians, photographers and performers scurried about behind the stage.

This must be the place

I noticed it two rows behind me.

Sitting at the cold, hard tables of my eighth-grade science class in the fall of 1998, I thwarted away my boredom by gazing around the room, sometimes at the clock slowly ticking away on the wall, sometimes at the cute girl at the next table I’d hope to someday kiss at a middle school dance.

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