The Blue Ridge Music Trails salutes Clifford Glenn, the talented dulcimer and banjo maker from Watauga County, who passed away on July 18, 2015 at the age of seventy-nine. Clifford made dulcimers and fretless mountain banjos for more than five decades in a tradition that dates back to his great-grandfather, Eli Presnell.
During the folk boom of the 1960s, Clifford and his father, Leonard Glenn, were discovered by the folk music community and orders for instruments began pouring in from all over the country and eventually the world.
When asked what he wanted to impart in general to the public, Clifford said, “I'd rather the instruments I make be played rather than just hung on a wall for decoration like some are. But they're made to be played and that's what I'd like to see done with them.”
Musician Lew Dite recounts his story of discovering, corresponding with, and visiting Clifford in this video, which also showcases a banjo made by Clifford and a dulcimer made by his father.
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On the evening of Friday, June 26th, the Waynesville Street Dance will be live-streamed over the internet as part of North Carolina Music Day. Tune in and watch on your smart phone, tablet, or computer. You’ll need to follow @VisitNC on Twitter or on the Periscope app.
Here’s the official announcement:
Visit NC to Use Periscope to Promote #NCMusicDay to Visitors
The featured events ― a mountain music street dance, a showcase from the African American Music Trails of Eastern North Carolina and a beach music mixer ― stretch from the Great Smoky Mountains to the Outer Banks. The program, which runs from about 6 until 8:30 p.m., will be broadcast from the Visit North Carolina Periscope channel and includes an interview with an “American Idol” finalist and an informal dance lesson. Streamers can further engage by posting their own pictures and video clips from Friday music events taking place in North Carolina.
Here’s the itinerary:
Waynesville, home of the Friday Night Street Dances on Main Street and part of the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina. At these summertime events featuring the area’s finest bluegrass musicians, bands and clogging teams, visitors dance with the locals under the direction of caller Joe Sam Queen. Periscope streamers can do likewise after hearing a chat with Queen about the clogging tradition.
Goldsboro, home of “American Idol” finalist Majesty Rose and a stop on the African American Music Trails of Eastern North Carolina. Rose, who competed in Season 13, will talk about how North Carolina’s music traditions have influenced her style ― and headline a hometown concert at Herman Park Gazebo. The Periscope broadcast will include moments on stage with Rose and the Eric Xavier Quintet featuring Brian Miller.
Rodanthe, North Carolina’s easternmost point and home of the Summeritaville festival. Beach music lovers will gather at Waves Village Watersports Resort for performances by Outer Banks native Johnny Waters and SOULone along with food and craft vendors, a craft beer and wine garden, kids’ activities, watersports demos and more.
“Thanks to Periscope, people from all around the world will get a sense of North Carolina’s expansive musical heritage,” said Wit Tuttell, executive director of Visit North Carolina. “Working with our partners for this broadcast allows a glimpse at how traditions from the mountains and Eastern North Carolina have influenced the music that will be performed on the Outer Banks.”
Visit North Carolina became one of the first destination brands to take advantage of Periscope, Twitter’s livestreaming app. Within the first 48 hours of the app’s existence, Visit North Carolina coordinated six livestream events from the mountains to the coast, showing fans how to#VacationBIG.
Building on the follower base established during the first broadcast, Visit North Carolina partnered with MerleFest to take fans behind the scenes of the four-day Americana festival in Wilkesboro. The @VisitNC account livestreamed performances and interviews with bands including homegrown group The Avett Brothers.
“Visit North Carolina continues to use new technology to give visitors a front-row seat to North Carolina attractions and events,” Tuttell said. “We hope that what they see and hear will inspire them to experience our great state in person.”
CONTACT:
Scott Peacock 919-447-7783
scott.peacock@VisitNC.com
Suzanne Brown 919-447-7766
suzanne.brown@VisitNC.com
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This summer get out and experience a world of adventure along the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina. The Music Trails span 29 counties and feature more than 200 traditional music events. Many of them are in charming towns you often drive past on your way to somewhere else. We suggest a short drive through Western North Carolina to fill your day, or weekend, with the history, character, and music of our mountain towns.
Jill Jones, Marketing Director of the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area, recently visited WSLS News 10 in Roanoke to talk about a few fun day-trips and suggested itineraries to Mt. Airy, Eden, and Sparta. Check out the interview on WSLS Daytime Blue Ridge, then check out our Suggested Itineraries or Find Music events right on this website and plan your own get away.
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The Blue Ridge National Heritage Area is showcasing the traditional music of Western North Carolina in a series of music videos, “Back Roads to the Blue Ridge Music Trails of NC.”
Ten videos have been produced and will be introduced individually throughout the summer and fall of 2015. The first, filmed at the Feed & Seed music hall in Fletcher, will be released on Tuesday, May 19, on the Blue Ridge Music Trails YouTube channel.
“These fun films were made in small, off-the-beaten-path music venues that lovers of the traditional music of our region might otherwise not find,” said Angie Chandler, Executive Director of the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area. “Our goal is to get visitors to learn about and enjoy this music in venues, festivals, and music halls of all sizes, all over Western North Carolina.”
Each video is accompanied by a suggested itinerary to encourage visitors to stay longer and discover more of the cultural and heritage attractions in the region.
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We are saddened to report that legendary Dobro player Tut Taylor has passed. Learn more about Tut in our Traditional Artist Directory.
Here is a fitting tribute from The Tennessean:
Tut Taylor, “The Flatpickin' Dobro Man” who played on John Hartford's groundbreaking LP “Aereo-Plain” and helped open Nashville bluegrass hot spot The Old Time Pickin' Parlor in the early 1970s, died Thursday morning at the Wilkes Regional Medical Center in North Carolina. He was 91.
Robert Arthur Taylor, Sr. was born in Milledgeville, Ga., on Nov. 20, 1923. His parents reportedly paid the woman who delivered him in collard greens. He grew up in a musical family, and as a child he played the mandolin. He started learning how to play the Dobro in his early teens after hearing Bashful Brother Oswald play the instrument on the radio.
Unlike other Dobro players, who use fingerpicks, Mr. Taylor used a flatpick.
“He did everything different,” said longtime friend and Dobro virtuoso Jerry Douglas. “He held the bar in an unorthodox way and he used a flatpick, but he was a guy who could keep up (with other musicians). He could play all the rolls that three-fingered players would do, but with a flatpick.”
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March is Women's History Month as we pay tribute to generations of women and celebrate their accomplishments. The mountains and foothills of North Carolina have been home to several women now well known for their accomplishments and legacies in the history of traditional music and dance.
Celebrate Women's History Month by learning more about these historic artists and how they influence dthe traditions we enjoy today.
Etta Baker – Etta Baker was a master of the blues guitar style that became popular in the southern piedmont after the turn of the century. She was raised in the foothills of Caldwell County where music was central in the lives of her family and friends.
“Aunt” Samantha Bumgarner – Samantha Bumgarner of Sylva was one of the first women and first traditional Southern banjo players to record old-time mountain music. Best known as a banjo player, she played both fiddle and banjo on her 1924 recordings with Eva Davis which were among the earliest Southern string band records to be released.
Ola Belle Reed – One of thirteen children in a musical family in Lansing, North Carolina, Ola Wave Campbell (she changed her name to Ola Belle) became a prolific songwriter and performer. In 1986, she was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts for her banjo playing and singing.
Lulu Belle – Husband-and-wife country stars Lulu Belle and Scotty Wiseman had prominent music careers that included years of performing, recording, and even appearances in movies. They became known as the Hayloft Sweethearts, and Lulu Belle was voted the most popular female on the radio in 1936. They were stars of the WLS National Barn Dance in Chicago for 20 years.
Dellie Norton – Dellie Norton sang the old English and Scottish ballads that were carried to the Southern Appalachians with the first settlers of the region. She sang in the traditional way, unaccompanied and with richly ornamented melodies, and her repertoire favored old songs like “Lord Bateman” and “House Carpenter” that recall events of the deep past.
Mary Jane Queen – Mary Jane Queen lived in the Caney Fork section of Jackson County near where she was born in 1914. She sang for her own pleasure, performed with her family, and she happily shared her music with others. She sang songs brought by pioneering settlers from Ulster, old ballads formed in an earlier America, hymns and spirituals from both Baptist and Methodist traditions, and comic songs that derive from both the European and African American traditions.
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The Blue Ridge National Heritage Area Partnership (BRNHA) announces the award of 8 grants in support of the musical heritage and traditions of the North Carolina Mountains and foothills.
“We appreciate and are grateful for all the wonderful work that is being done throughout the region to preserve our heritage and improve our communities,” said Angie Chandler, Executive Director of the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area Partnership. “This year’s grant cycle was extremely competitive—we had 52 applicants and some great projects presented, but we simply could not fund them all.”
Appalachian State University: $7,500 to work with local schools to develop multimedia lesson plans about North Carolina’s music traditions for 8th grade students
Fines Creek Community Association: $3,950 to enhance the Fines Creek Community Center as a venue for indoor and outdoor traditional music performances in Haywood County
Isothermal Community College: $8,000 for upgrades to WNCW-FM’s Studio B which presents live broadcasts of regional and traditional musicians
Liston B. Ramsey Center for Regional Studies at Mars Hill University: $5,000 to support a documentary film about Madison County master fiddler Roger Howell
Mount Airy Museum of Regional History: $6,500 to support the development of a traveling exhibit on dulcimer makers
Parkway Playhouse: $6,000 for upgrades to the Burnsville theater’s lighting and sound systems to support further music programming
Surry Arts Council: $5,000 for sound system and exhibit improvements at the Earle Theatre/Old-Time Music Heritage Hall in Mount Airy
Town of Lansing: $10,000 for renovations to two historic barns to create an indoor stage and dance hall for traditional music events
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A dream nearly twenty years in the making is about to be fulfilled when Reidsville, North Carolina native, Jordan Nance, premieres his first documentary, “Broadcast: A Man and His Dream” on UNC-TV Thursday, February 19th at 10 pm. “Broadcast” tells the story of Ralph Epperson who grew up in the foothills of southwestern Virginia in the 1920s and 30s and then went on to found legendary radio station WPAQ in Mount Airy, NC.
Overcoming many obstacles, he started the station in 1948 with the promise to promote the traditional string music native to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Today 740AM still plays and promotes bluegrass, old time, and gospel music along with live performances at the weekly Merry-Go-Round show. The film features a soundtrack of more than fifty original music recordings and interviews with pioneers of traditional music including Benton Flippen, LW Lambert, and others.
Four time Grammy award winner and musician, David Holt says of the film, “Jordan Nance has put together a fine documentary about radio station WPAQ in Mt. Airy, NC. The station can be credited with helping keep traditional mountain music thriving in the Blue Ridge. Kudos to Jordan for bringing an engaging and important history to life.”
Nance, who is thirty-one and lives with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy since birth, had the idea to document Ralph Epperson’s creation of WPAQ after his first visit to the station in 1995. Eleven years later in 2006 he had the opportunity to interview Epperson just six weeks before he passed away.
Nance, along with his parents Keith and Joy, traveled around the region talking to family members, musicians, on-air talent, and listeners about Epperson and the early days of WPAQ when much of the music was broadcast live.
“Broadcast: A Man and His Dream” airs on UNC-TV Thursday night, February 19th at 10 pm.
To learn more about the documentary or purchase a DVD, visit BroadcastTheDream.com or Facebook.com/BroadcastBluegrassRadioFilm. For more information, contact Jordan Nance at jordycoy@triad.rr.com or Joy Nance at 336-951-1525.
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A young African American blues musician and the “first family” of country music may seem like strange bedfellows, but the partnership between Lesley Riddle (1905–1979) and the Carter Family had an extraordinary impact on American music.
As we celebrate Black History Month and the abundance of African American musicians, writers and artists in North Carolina, we salute Lesley Riddle. Riddle will soon be honored with a North Carolina Highway Historical Marker to be erected west of Burnsville on Highway 19.
Riddle, who is credited with teaching Maybelle Carter her trademark guitar techniques, is also celebrated by an annual festival, Riddlefest. Created by the Traditional Voices Group, this year’s event is scheduled Friday, July 3 at the Parkway Playhouse and will feature David Holt, accompanied by Josh Gofoth.
Lesley Riddle was born June 13, 1905 in the Silvers Gap community, north of Burnsville. Before he entered his teens, his parents, Ed and Hattie, separated and Hattie took the three children and moved to Kingsport, Tenn. The Riddle family would move back and forth between Burnsville and Kingsport several times over the next 20 years.
When he was in his mid-teens, Lesley had an accident at a cement plant and ended up losing most of one leg. The handicap gave him a lot of down time, which he spent learning to play the guitar, mostly blues and gospel songs. (He later lost two fingers in a shooting accident.)
A.P. Carter, the Carter family patriarch, first heard Lesley play guitar and sing on the streets of Kingsport. At the time, A.P. was under pressure to find new material. With Lesley, he found the solution to his song quest.
He brought Lesley home to sit and play for A.P.’s wife and sister-in-law, Sara and Maybelle. They heard urban and rural blues in the style of Blind Boy Fuller and spiritual music from the African American churches of Appalachia. Soon after, A.P. asked Lesley to take him to African American communities all over Appalachian Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina to find new songs for the Carter Family band. [Lesley Riddle_gravesite]
Lesley would memorize the tunes and words before returning to the Carters and then teach the songs to Sara and Maybelle. The number of songs the Carter Family learned from Lesley will never be known, but without a doubt the Carter Family songbook, and that of country music, is much richer for their relationship with Lesley.
While the relationship between Lesley Riddle and the Carter Family, A.P. in particular, is almost certainly not unique, it is one of the few documented cases of a rural black musician from this time period interacting so closely and personally with a popular country music artist. In this regard, Riddle stands as an important figure in North Carolina music history.
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Traditional music is alive and jamming in the mountains and foothills of North Carolina this winter. While you stay warm by your wood stoves and fireplaces this month, learn about where you can get out and enjoy our region's rich musical heritage at local events.
Bluegrass First Class: February 20 -22, Crowne Plaza Resort, Asheville, NC. Tickets required. The intimate setting of Bluegrass First Class gives music fans an up close and personal weekend of unparalleled bluegrass music with nationally known performers.
Tommy Jarrell Festival: February 26 – 28, The Earle Theatre, Mount Airy, NC. Tickets required. Come celebrate the life and music of old-time fiddle master, Tommy Jarrell, featuring bluegrass, square dancing and the Round Peak old-time tradition.
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