Music of North Carolina
Because of their proximity to universities, areas such as Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill (collectively known as the Triangle), Asheville, Greensboro, Greenville, Charlotte, and Wilmington have long been a well-known center for indie rock, metal, punk, jazz, country and hip-hop.
3 album on the Billboard 200 in 2016 with True Sadness), Troop 41, Corrosion of Conformity, Superchunk, The Rosebuds, The Love Language, Benji Hughes, Jon Lindsay, Tift Merritt, Ben Folds Five, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Lords of the Underground, Between the Buried and Me, Mandolin Orange, and He Is Legend.
1 Hot 100 hit with "Rockstar" in 2020, Petey Pablo, 9th Wonder, Rapsody, Fred Durst, Mez, Lute, Ski Beatz, Deniro Farrar, and Cordae.
Slave musicians in North Carolina and throughout the country were often responsible for providing the dance music for both white and African American social gatherings.
The banjo is an instrument adapted from its African relative the akonting, and younger black musicians often learned to play from older community members.
One black musician, Joe Fulp, from the Walnut Cove community used the banjo to help pass the time while waiting for tobacco to cure.
The style of Piedmont string bands was influenced by the dance tune melodies of Europe and the rhythmic complexity of African banjo playing.
The Moravians who established the town of Winston-Salem had published Europe's first hymnal in the 15th century, and had brought from the Czech Republic and Saxony many instruments including skills to build pipe organs.
In the days of slavery, spirituals played a huge role in the lives of the slaves of North Carolina elite, and after emancipation, this stayed true.
The Greensboro-based Piedmont Blues Preservation Society has partnered with musicians such as Max Drake (born 1952) and a number of public schools in North Carolina to provide performances, exhibitions, and educational programs.
South Carolinian Dizzy Gillespie grew up just over the state line and attended school at the Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina.
Chapel Hill's music scene dates back to the 1950s, and began to take off in the 1960s, when the Cat's Cradle Coffeehouse nurtured local folk activity.
One of the first local legends, The Corsayers (later The Fabulous Corsairs) – featuring Alex Taylor and younger brother James – could be heard around town.
In the late 1980s through the mid-1990s and 2000s, the Chapel Hill scene reached its peak as bands such as Superchunk, Polvo, Archers of Loaf, Alternative States, Small, Zen Frisbee, Dillon Fence, Sex Police, Pipe, The Veldt, Metal Flake Mother were signed to local and national labels.
In the late 1990s, gold record and platinum success came to Chapel Hill bands Squirrel Nut Zippers and the piano pop trio Ben Folds Five (who had a comeback with a No.
The first wave of bands were more power-pop than punk, and included Peter Holsapple & the H-Bombs, Sneakers, Secret Service, Nevermind, and Chris Stamey and the dBs.
Later hardcore punk bands included Corrosion of Conformity, No Labels, Colcor, UNICEF, Stillborn Christians,[12] DAMM, Bloodmobile, Subculture, Sacred Cows, Ugly Americans, 30 Foot Beast, Sodium Citrate, Mission DC, the Celibate Commandos, Rights Reserved, DLW, Creeping Flesh, Time Bomb, Stations of the Cross, A Number of Things, and Oral Fixation.
[13] Some other notable Heavy Metal acts from North Carolina are Alesana, Weedeater, Divided by Friday, Buzzoven, Daylight Dies, ASG, Between the Buried and Me, Wretched, Space Age Polymers Co (SAPCO), Confessor, and Schuylar Croom from Wilmington, who was a founder of the rock and roll band He is Legend.
Rainbow Kitten Surprise (from Boone), Sylvan Esso, Ben Folds Five, and Charlotte's Paper Tongues ("Ride to California" 2009), Will*Saint Creek are all from North Carolina.
The successful alternative hip hop group also co-founded the Justus League collective, which features other important North Carolina emcees, including L.E.G.A.C.Y., The Away Team, Darien Brockington, Edgar Allen Floe, Chaundon, and Cesar Comanche.
; The Apple Juice Kid, Kaze, Ski, Travis Cherry, Wan Gray, from Raleigh; and Petey Pablo ("Raise Up"), from Greenville.
Much of this information relating to the vibrant folk music culture in this area of North Carolina comes from The Frank Clyde Brown Collection[19] located at Duke University in Durham.
[23] For example, tiny western mountainous areas such as Elk Park host a plethora of folk music artists whose memory still lives on in the Frank Clyde Brown Collection.
[24] Music recorded such as "Black Jack Davy" and "The Titanic" show the importance of continuing the tradition of old time folk songs to be orally transmitted into future generations.
[21] This idea of a family unit performing folk music together further supports the mission of this genre to connect communities through a shared culture.
[25] Plenty of times, specific words and phrases will be altered depending on from which region the Appalachian folk music singer performed.
The projects of the Frank Clyde Brown Collection and other folk music initiatives are introducing the people of the present to a popular form of expression in the past.
Going forward, Duke University students are looking to explore a plethora of these archives to learn more about the history surrounding folk music in North Carolina.
Through an Archives Alive course currently taught by Professor Trudi Abel, seven students have engaged in a Bass Connections project to uncover more information about this folk music.
[29] North Carolina is home to many groups from the Indie Folk and Progressive Bluegrass scenes, including Mandolin Orange and Mipso from Chapel Hill, Beta Radio from Wilmington, Steep Canyon Rangers from Brevard, Avett Brothers from Concord, River Whyless from Asheville, Old Crow Medicine Show from Boone, The Collection from Greensboro, and Bombadil and Carolina Chocolate Drops from Durham.
