On February 28th, 1964, Thelonious Monk graced the cover of Time Magazine. The essay within, “The Loneliest Monk” by Barry Farrell, reinforces the imagery of the cover – painting monk as a mysteriously dark, but brilliant innovator.
To read the article published 55 years ago today.
Willie French Lowery was born in 1944 in Robeson County, N.C. During his career, he published over 500 songs and his groups “Plant and See” and “Lumbee” toured with the likes of the Allman Brothers, Linda Ronstadt, and Canned Heat. Beyond his musical prowess, Lowery was a pillar of North Carolina’s Lumbee community, serving as an activist, educator, and tradition-bearer of his tribe’s heritage.
Sister Lena Mae Perry says music is like medicine. She would know. At 80-years-old, Sister Perry has helmed the Branchettes, a celebrated gospel group from Johnston County, North Carolina, for decades. To see her perform is to witness the healing powers of music, and, at risk of cliché, to be taken to church.
Born in Johnston County in 1940, she grew up in a farming family that deeply valued education, faith, and music.
From negro spirituals to the blues, Black Southerners historically have relied on music to document the social ills of America and resist state-sanctioned violence against Black bodies.
Since 1989, the State of North Carolina, through the North Carolina Arts Council, has honored dozens of folk artists with the North Carolina Heritage Award. Throughout 2019, we will highlight the eminent musicians honored with the award. Today, we republish the official N.C. Heritage Award profile of the Wilson Brothers, a gospel duo from the western part of the state who received the award in 1998.
Back home in Puerto Rico in the early 1990s, I used to listen to a jazz radio show called “En Clave de Jazz” where the DJ played music by artists such as Tito Puente, Cal Tjader and Bobby Hutcherson. It was through that program that I discover the marimba! At the time, I had no idea what that instrument was or where I could learn it but I immediately felt in love with its sound. Then in 1994, I started taking marimba lessons at the Escuela Libre de Música in Caguas, Puerto Rico; from there I went to the Puerto Rico Music Conservatory and eventually to the University of North Texas.
Story From our Friends at the Blue Ridge Music Trails
If there were such a thing as an academic rock star, Duke University’s Mark Anthony Neal would be one. Neal is a professor, hip-hop scholar, and author, who is a highly-sought after cultural critic.
Walker Calhoun was a Cherokee musician, dancer, and teacher. During his lifetime, he was honored for his work with the inaugural Sequoyah Award (1988), a North Carolina Folk Heritage Award (1990) and a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (1992). In celebration of National Native American Heritage Month, we are proud to share a revised version of his biography that was written for the 1990 North Carolina Folk Heritage Award Ceremony. We are grateful for his service to this state and his people.
On the eve of New Year’ Eve, we wanted to share a story from the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina guidebook about a famous outlaw memorialized in song. Enjoy below.
On New Year’s Eve in 1930, one of North Carolina’s most famous outlaws was killed in a barrage of gunfire. Otto Wood was born in the Dellaplane community of Wilkes County. He spent most of his short life traveling across the country as a bootlegger, a bandit, and a fugitive. As the song would later say, “He loved the women, he hated the law and he just wouldn’t take nobody’s jaw.”