Carry this together: Zoe and Cloyd
Zoe & Cloyd will perform Aug. 2 at AVLfest in Asheville. File photo
With their latest album, “Songs of Our Grandfathers,” rising Asheville Americana/folk duo Zoe & Cloyd decided to take a different approach to this most recent musical endeavor.
“For the past eight years, we’ve been focusing primarily on original songwriting, kind of our own music and interpretations,” said fiddler/vocalist Natalya Zoe Weinstein. “And, with this project, we’re going back to our musical lineages of our grandfathers.”
Those lineages at the core of the couple’s album are the klezmer and jazz stylings of Weinstein’s ancestors, and the traditional bluegrass tones of John Cloyd’s grandfather, Jim Shumate, a pioneering fiddler in his own right.
“[Jim] was from Wilkes County and lived in Hickory,” Cloyd said. “So, we’re pulling from pieces that he recorded with Flatt & Scruggs, stuff he played with Bill Monroe, and songs that he wrote — it’s become much more than just a heritage project.”
“[My grandfather] emigrated from Russia in 1923 and then came [to America] via Argentina because he couldn’t initially get into the United States,” Weinstein added. “And though we don’t have any recordings of my grandfather, we have all of these handwritten music notebooks of his — it’s been so fun to go through them.”
Geographically, Weinstein hails from Massachusetts, with her husband, Cloyd, a 12th generation North Carolinian. And as Cloyd was surrounded by bluegrass and mountain music as a youth raised in Southern Appalachia, Weinstein grew up playing classical violin, with her father a jazz pianist.
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“Music was always around, and I was always passionate about it,” Weinstein said. “I did classical music for about 15 years, but got bored with it in college, reading notes on a page and so on. I wanted to do something different, only to fall in with folks who played bluegrass and old-time music.”
After college, Weinstein relocated to Asheville in 2004 and hasn’t looked back since finding herself in Western North Carolina.
“I fell in love with bluegrass,” Weinstein said. “The more you listen to it, the more you hear the subtleties and the power in that music.”
As a member of Gen X, Cloyd found himself more interested in the heavier sounds of 1990s grunge and popular music early on, but it was a deep love for The Grateful Dead that led him down the rabbit hole to iconic 1970s jam-grass group Old & In The Way, featuring Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia on banjo.
“That ‘bridge moment’ came when I was home from college and hanging out with my grandfather,” Cloyd recalled. “I asked him, ‘Have you ever played ‘Pig In A Pen’? And he played it, he could everything on that record. He says, ‘Vassar Clements plays on that record, he’s a good friend of mine.’ I knew my grandfather was cool, but I didn’t know he knew all of these [music legends].”
Initially, Weinstein and Cloyd were part of Americana/roots group Red June. But, after the arrival of their daughter, they decided to venture out on their own, ultimately forming Zoe & Cloyd in 2015. From humble beginnings, the duo has toured extensively around the greater Southeast and beyond, gracing the stages of numerous legendary stages and festivals.
In 2021, Zoe & Cloyd were featured on the acclaimed PBS program “David Holt’s State of Music.” And the 2023 release of “Songs of Our Grandfathers” (Organic Records) signaled Zoe & Cloyd’s first international gig, which took place in Northern Ireland last year.
“Whereas I come from classical music theory and a formal background, John comes from the folk tradition of learning music by ear,” Weinstein said. “And I think because we come from different musical backgrounds, we complement each other with our skillsets and sensibilities.”
“We feel fortunate that we’re able to play music together, and to make stuff that people enjoy,” Cloyd added. “My grandfather didn’t have any kind of formal training on his instrument at all. And he always said to me that playing music is a gift, and he was right — it is a gift.”
Want to go?
The second annual AVLfest will take place Aug. 1-4 at numerous venues around Asheville.
Blitzen Trapper. File photo
Within the over 300 acts announced for the gathering, headliners include Papadosio, Washed Out, The New Pornographers, Beachwood Sparks, Langhorne Slim, Blitzen Trapper, River Whyless, Town Mountain, Susto, The Mother Hips, Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters, Jon Stickley Trio, Tyler Ramsey, Scott McMicken & The Ever Expanding, Randall Bramblett & The Megablasters, Larry Keel Experience, Zoe & Cloyd and much more.
For more information, a full schedule of artists and/or to purchase tickets, go to avlfest.com.
