Latino immigration has impacted North Carolina’s culture in a variety of ways. You can see it in the number of Mexican restaurants here, or in the presence of Univision, the Spanish-language TV network.
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Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina: A Guide to Music Sites, Artists, and Traditions of the Mountains and Foothills
The music and dance traditions of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains are legendary. Residents continue a musical heritage that stretches back many generations. In this lively guidebook, noted folklorist Fred C. Fussell puts readers on the trail to discover the many sites in western North Carolina where this unique musical legacy thrives. Organized by region… Read More →
Red Fox Chasers: I’m Going Down to North Carolina
Complete recordings of the 1920s and ’30s string band from Northwest North Carolina. Two-disc set with extensive liner notes.
Bascom Lamar Lunsford: Ballads, Banjo Tunes, and Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina
Bascom Lunsford (1882 – 1973), who was one of the luminaries in the early days of North Carolina folklore studies, was also a talented banjo player and sweet-voiced singer of ballads. The nineteen recordings on this album are drawn mostly from his “memory collection,” a 1949 recording session at the Library of Congress during which… Read More →
Joe Thompson: Family Tradition
Released in celebration of Joe Thompson’s eightieth birthday, “Family Tradition” contains some of his very best recordings. Thompson is joined by his cousin Odell and brother Nate, also important figures in the black stringband tradition, and by friends Bob Carlin and Scott Ainslie, playing oldtime piedmont stringband music and gospel songs, including a spectacular festival… Read More →
George Herbert Moore: Roots and Shoes
Burgaw native and well known Wilmington performer George Herbert Moore’s second album. The sixteen tracks on “Roots and Shoes,” from traditional and original pieces to Jimmy Reed and Muddy Waters covers, displays the breadth of Moore’s mastery of blues styles. Listen: G. I. Fever
The Doc Watson Family
This album is a reissue of a 1963 Smithsonian record, which captured a remarkable moment in North Carolina’s musical history. Doc Watson, in the earliest days of his ascent to international acclaim, plays and sings here with his very musical extended family. Featured are the gentle and eerie fiddling of Watson’s father-in-law, Gaither Carlton, multi-part… Read More →
Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia
“The sounds and social history of African American banjo playing – 32 superb instrumentals and vocals, recorded between 1974 and 1997. Extensively annotated with performers’ life histries, tunings, lyrics, bibliography, and discography. The banjo’s gourd ancestors came to the Americas with enslaved Africans, forging the link between West African griots and performers of 20th-century blues… Read More →
Marcus Martin: When I Get My New House Done, Western North Carolina Fiddle Tunes and Songs
Marcus Martin, one of the finest old-time musicians from western North Carolina, had a legendary fiddling style. The Southern Folklife Collection presents rare and unreleased 1940s field recordings of this acclaimed master fiddler recorded in his prime by Alan Lomax, Jan Schinhan, Artus Moser and Margaret Mayo. Details: 2007, UNC Chapel Hill, North Carolina Folklife… Read More →
Masters of the Banjo
The 1993 Masters of the Banjo Tour featured traditional banjo styles, African and Irish as well as American, played by some of the instrument’s star players. Among the North Carolinians featured on this album are Kirk Sutphin, Tony Ellis, and Carroll Best. Details: 1994, Arhoolie 421 Listen to Carroll Best: McMichen’s Reel