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Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina

Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina

Blue Ridge Music Trails

Music legends and traditions of the North Carolina mountains and foothills.
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Top 10 Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina - Episode 2: The Ballad Swap at the Old Marshall Jail

Episode 2: The Ballad Swap at the Old Marshall Jail

Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina

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11/11/24 • 8 min

Donna Ray Norton and Melanie Rice are eight-generation ballad singers. Along with noted musician Sheila Kay Adams and other local singers, they host a monthly ballad swap at the Old Marshall Jail in downtown Marshall, NC. The event has gained notoriety as the only recurring ballad swap in the area, bringing awareness of the traditional music genre to a broader audience.

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Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina - Matthew Tooni Carries on Traditions of Cherokee Stories and Music

Matthew Tooni Carries on Traditions of Cherokee Stories and Music

Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina

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03/30/20 • 2 min

Cultures around the world face the problem of losing their traditions when younger people don’t take interest in their heritage. But among the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, an exceptionally dedicated generation of young tradition bearers, men and women in their twenties and thirties, are both learning and teaching the culture of their ancestors. One of the most prominent members of this generation is language preservationist, musician, and storyteller Matthew Tooni.
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Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina - Byard Ray and Obray Ramsey Make Long, Strange Trip into Pop Culture

Byard Ray and Obray Ramsey Make Long, Strange Trip into Pop Culture

Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina

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01/17/20 • 2 min

It’s not unusual for traditional musicians to influence artists in other styles, and that kind of cross-pollination was especially common in the 1960s and ’70s, as pop and rock musicians mined the depths of old-time, blues, and other folk styles. But few traditional musicians of that era had quite such a long, strange trip into the world of pop culture as North Carolina’s Byard Ray and Obray Ramsey.
Ray and Ramsey were cousins from Madison County, North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge Mountains west of Asheville. Madison County has been home to renowned traditional ballad singers and instrumentalists for generations, and the two men were part of the network of families whose musical heritage has made the county famous. Obray Ramsey was a banjo player with an old-time three-finger picking style and a smooth, high singing voice. Byard Ray was a skilled fiddler whose musical roots drew from the playing of some of the early fiddlers of the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains, including J. D. Harris, who influenced many other great musicians of the region.
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Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina - Don Reno Finds Success as a Bluegrass Banjo Innovator and Bandleader

Don Reno Finds Success as a Bluegrass Banjo Innovator and Bandleader

Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina

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12/16/19 • 2 min

While Earl Scruggs is often credited as the originator of bluegrass banjo, he was actually an innovator within a broader tradition of three-finger banjo playing. Predating bluegrass, it was made famous by banjo players from the hills and mountains of the Carolinas, all of whom had their own personal takes on the style. In addition to Scruggs, these pioneers included Wade Mainer, Smith Hammett, Snuffy Jenkins, and Don Reno.
In 1948, when Don Reno heard that Earl Scruggs had left Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, he took his banjo to a concert that the band was giving in North Carolina, and without invitation or warning, joined them on stage. Monroe welcomed him, and for the next year Don toured as a Blue Grass Boy.
Though playing banjo for the Blue Grass Boys was in many ways a dream gig for a young musician, leaving that band cleared the way for Reno to form the band in which he would find the greatest success, his partnership with fellow Carolina mountain musician and veteran Red Smiley.
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Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina - Mary Jane Queen Preserved a Family Tradition of Songs and Stories

Mary Jane Queen Preserved a Family Tradition of Songs and Stories

Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina

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12/10/19 • 5 min

In Jackson County, North Carolina, the Queen family has long played, sung, and shared the music of their native home. The matriarch of the Queen family was Mary Jane Queen. Her father, James Sylvester Prince, born in 1876, was known as a great banjo player. Mary Jane also absorbed many old songs from her singing grandmothers, and one of her brothers was said to be the first person in the Caney Fork section of Jackson County to own a guitar. Though the old music was always in Mary Jane Queen’s memory, it wasn’t until later in life, after she’d raised eight children and become a widow, that she began to focus on singing and sharing the old songs that she’d grown up with.
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Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina - Smoky Mountain Folk Festival Celebrates Fifty Years of Music and Dance

Smoky Mountain Folk Festival Celebrates Fifty Years of Music and Dance

Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina

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08/30/19 • 2 min

Back in 1969, while still a college student, Joe Sam Queen, grandson of legendary dancer Sam Love Queen, was asked by the town of Waynesville to call a square dance on the streets of downtown. The square dance became the Smoky Mountain Folk Festival and this Labor Day weekend, in 2019, it celebrates 50 years.
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Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina - Fiddler Carley Arrowood Lends Her Voice to Mountain Music

Fiddler Carley Arrowood Lends Her Voice to Mountain Music

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08/22/19 • 2 min

It’s not unusual for a mountain musician to be a part of several different musical traditions. A Blue Ridge fiddler might play in a mountain swing session on Friday night, sit in with an old-time band playing for a square dance on Saturday night, and sing in the church choir on Sunday morning. In this respect, Carley Arrowood is in good company. But Carley stands out in her youth: few artists as young as she have already mastered so many genres. She plays, sings, and writes bluegrass and gospel music, and was a classical performer as a child.
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Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina - Rhiannon Ramsey Exemplifies the Next Generation of Fiddlers

Rhiannon Ramsey Exemplifies the Next Generation of Fiddlers

Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina

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06/27/19 • 2 min

Recent years have seen a blossoming of interest in mountain music among musicians who were born in the 1990s and 2000s. Among the youngest of this cohort, North Carolina fiddler Rhiannon Ramsey epitomizes a blend of great musical chops and continuation of mountain traditions. Her native Madison County is famously musical, a place that the early ballad collector Cecil Sharp referred to as “a nest of singing birds.” She leads her own band, Rhiannon and the Relics, and in 2018 she joined the Stony Creek Boys, a band that has been an anchor of Asheville’s traditional music community for more than fifty years.
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Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina - Mountain music has deep roots in British Isles

Mountain music has deep roots in British Isles

Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina

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02/12/19 • 2 min

The music of the Southern Appalachians is a melting pot of diverse styles and people. Settlers from the British Isles and Germany came here in the 18th century with their string music and balladry, shaping the sounds.
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Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina - Episode 4: Andy Griffith from Mayberry

Episode 4: Andy Griffith from Mayberry

Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina

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11/12/24 • 9 min

Most people know Andy Griffith as the loveable sheriff of Mayberry, the town based in Mount Airy, NC. Beyond the role, Griffith was a musician and entertainer who shared his knowledge and love of traditional music with his audiences.

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FAQ

How many episodes does Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina have?

Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina currently has 127 episodes available.

What topics does Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina cover?

The podcast is about Music, Bluegrass, Folk, Podcasts and Blues.

What is the most popular episode on Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina?

The episode title 'Jack Guy Compiled a Treasure Trove of Mountain Music' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina?

The average episode length on Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina is 7 minutes.

How often are episodes of Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina released?

Episodes of Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina are typically released every 13 days.

When was the first episode of Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina?

The first episode of Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina was released on Apr 17, 2017.

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