I recently was able travel with the Music Maker crew to Southern Pines, NC for the 15th annual Sunrise Theater Blues Crawl. After helping to coordinate the event, it was exciting to see months of planning fall into place. When we arrived in Southern Pines, we made our way around to every venue, speaking with […]

It’s festival season, a very important time for fiddlers and pickers throughout the mountains of Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee. From about the first weekend in June to the end of September, there is a fiddle festival every weekend  in a municipal park or on the side of some mountain where the keepers of mountain […]

No band in recent memory has carried the torch of traditional music more than the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Under master fiddler Joe Thompson’s tutelage the Carolina Chocolate Drops learned about old-time string band music straight from the source. The band’s rendition of Black Annie is an incredible driving tune that genuinely represents what this music […]

In 2006, an unknown Piedmont Blues guitarist joined Music Maker. Now a blues legend, Boo Hanks would not have been known to Music Maker or the world without the efforts of volunteer Tony Young. On that fateful day in 2006, Tony went to pick up Boo Hanks from his house, then turned around to head […]

Dave McGrew has spent his life following the harvest as a fruit picker; Lemons, apples, cherries, mangoes, avocados, strawberries, grapes – you name it. His hands have likely been on your fruit. He has also been one of the most die-hard Music Maker supporters and Partners from the beginning. He has helped build two Music […]