Pigeon Community ‘Storytellers Series’

The Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center in Waynesville has recently announced its 2025 “Pigeon Community Conversations with Storytellers Series.” 

This must be the place: ‘I don’t expect you to listen, but the show goes on’

Early Tuesday morning. Sitting in the dentist chair, I stared blankly out onto the parking lot, only to then notice the bustling traffic on nearby U.S. 276. It was at that moment when the nice dental hygienist asked if a date and time in mid-September 2025 would be ideal for my next teeth cleaning.  

Blues in the 21st: A conversation with Jimmy Vivino

When it comes to the vast, vibrant landscape of American blues guitarists, few six-string aces have had as varied and as illustrious a career over the last 30 years as that of Jimmy Vivino. 

This must be the place: Ode to the torchbearers of tomorrow, ode to why I got into this gig

Hello from Room 105 at the Holiday Inn Express in Macon, Georgia. It’s 73 degrees outside with a slight, refreshing breeze. Quite the contrast from just a couple weeks ago when I was jogging down the snowy, frozen backroads of the North Country in my native Upstate New York. 

Want to join the Haywood Community Band?

The Haywood Community Band is a welcoming haven for musicians of all skill levels rekindling their love of creating powerful music.

If you played a band instrument in the past, you’re welcome to attend rehearsals and see if the community band is where you’d like to perform in a respected music group.

To here from there: 'An Appalachian Evening' welcomes Missy Raines

With her latest album, “Highlander,” bluegrass/Americana icon Missy Raines takes inventory of where she stands at this current juncture in her storied career — this melodic ode to her native West Virginia, which simultaneously serves as an ideal prism of time and space Raines peers through into the unknowns of tomorrow. 

Lean into the blue: Town Mountain celebrates 20 years

It’s safe to say that the whirlwind sounds and vibrant tones of Town Mountain (now referred to as “Americana”) were ahead of their time when the band first came to fruition in 2005 in the mountains of Western North Carolina. 

Coming home: Following his departure from Balsam Range, Buddy Melton looks ahead

At age 55, Buddy Melton decided to make a major change in his life, which resulted in his recent departure from Haywood County bluegrass juggernaut Balsam Range. 

From low to high: Georgia musicians promote hurricane relief in WNC

Sunny sea-level Savannah, Georgia, is known for a lot of things — historic colonial beauty, low country cuisine and a wide-open bar culture that benefits from/endures one of the nation’s few open container laws — but it also has a rich musical legacy that locals are now using to help victims of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina. 

Till the wheels fall off: A conversation with Charlie Starr

Amid this modern era of rock music, Blackberry Smoke is the absolute epitome of what it means to plug in your guitar, crank the amplifier and tap into that sacred two-way interaction of sound and scope, energy and enthusiasm residing at the heart of live performance. 

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