MUSIC MAKER RELIEF FOUNDATION 20TH ANNIVERSARY CULMINATES IN HOMECOMING CELEBRATION IN THE NC PIEDMONT OCTOBER 3 AND 4TH

LARGEST GATHERING OF MUSIC MAKER ARTISTS TO DATE FEATURES IRONING BOARD SAM, BEVERLY “GUITAR” WATKINS, JOHN DEE HOLEMAN, BOO HANKS, ROBERT LEE COLEMAN, LITTLE FREDDIE KING, AND MANY MORE
 
PANEL DISCUSSION OCTOBER 3 WITH UNC’S WILLIAM FERRIS
 
NEW ACCLAIM FROM THE NEW YORKER, WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE NATION
 
Music Maker Relief Foundation's 20th anniversary celebration will begin with a Homecoming Weekend October 3-4. October 3rd William Ferris, Phd will moderate a panel discussion preceding the opening of the We are the Music Makers! exhibit  and a Music Maker Blues Revue performance featuring Beverly "Guitar" Watkins, Cool John Ferguson, Captain Luke and more at The ArtsCenter in Carrboro, NC.

October 4 will mark the largest MMRF artist gathering ever with food, music and celebration featuring over forty artists. The performance will take place 2pm to 8pm at the Old Murphey School in Durham, NC. Among the many performers (full list at bottom with hometowns) are:
 
+ Ironing Board Sam – This “legendary” (Billboard) piano man and three-time veteran of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival has a new album ‘Ironing Board Sam & The Sticks,’ which is streaming at Billboard.
 
+ Beverly “Guitar” Watkins – This Atlanta guitar hero’s story of going from opening for James Brown and Ray Charles to working at a car wash was featured in the Wall Street Journal ahead of her recent Lincoln Center performance.
 
+ John Dee Holeman – This NEA National Heritage Fellowship award winner has recorded with Taj Mahal.

+ Boo Hanks – After making his debut album at the age of 79, the Washington Post praised his “irrepressible personality [and] propulsive push.” The lifelong tractor driver and Piedmont blues master recorded a session for Time Out New York.

+ Robert Lee Coleman – This guitarist was a member of the JBs and recorded with James Brown on such songs as “Hot Pants” and “Make It Funky.” Paul Reed Smith personally granted him a PRS guitar after hearing his playing.

+ Little Freddie King – This multiple New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest and Ponderosa Stomp veteran is one of New Orleans’ reigning bluesmen.
 
October 3 will see a panel discussion with Music Maker artists, moderated by folklorist and author William Ferris, PhD. Friday evening Music Maker will officially launch its exhibit, We Are the Music Makers with a performance by Cool John Ferguson, Ironing Board Sam, Beverly “Guitar” Watkins, and more. All of these events take place at the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, NC.
 
Recent events have included a museum exhibition, Lincoln Center performance. New book “We are the Music Makers” comes out September 15 on Nautilus Press while new 2CD set ‘We are the Music Makers’ comes out September 30. The New Yorker recently ran a playlist of Taj Mahal’s favorite songs from the Msuic Maker catalogue.
 
MMRF was included in Eric Alterman’s news and notes column in the Nation.
 
Here is a complete list of artists performing at the Homecoming at the Shared Visions Retreat Center in Hillsborough, NC October 4 along with list of their hometowns:
 

Big Ron Hunter - Winston-Salem, NC

Boo Hanks _ Buffalo Junction, VA

Captain Luke - Winston-Salem, NC

Cool John Ferguson - Beaufort, SC

Ironing Board Sam - Hillsborough, NC

John Dee Holeman - Hillsborough, NC

Pat "Mother Blues" Cohen - Salisbury, NC

Pura Fe - Durham, NC

Shelton Powe - Atlanta, GA

Tim and Susan Wells - Cedar Grove, NC

The Branchettes - Raleigh, NC

Beverly "Guitar" Watkins - Atlanta, GA

Drink Small - Columbia, SC

Eddie Tigner - Atlanta, GA

Robert Lee Coleman - Macon, GA

Dr Dixon - Atlanta, GA

David Bryant - Covington, GA

Algia Mae Hinton - Middlesex, NC

Lil' Joe - Atlanta, GA

Nashid Abdul - Atlanta, GA

Albert White - Atlanta, GA

Ardie Dean - Huntsville, AL

Bubba Norwood - Carrboro, NC

Lakota John and Kin - Pembroke, NC

Harvey Dalton Arnold - Burlington, NC

Lightnin’ Wells - Fountain, NC

Deer Clan Singers - Pembroke, NC

Lee Gates - Racine, WS

Major Handy - Lafayette, LA

Alabama Slim - New Orleans, LA

Little Freddie King - New Orleans, LA

Little Pink Anderson - Vermillion, SD

Dave McGrew - Curlew, WA

PeeWee Hayes - Milwaukee, WI

Gerald Robinson - Winston-Salem, NC

Tad Walters - Raleigh, NC

Jeffrey Scott - Culpeper, VA

AMERICAN SONGSTER DOM FLEMONS HEADS OUT FROM GRAMMY-WINNING CAROLINA CHOCOLATE DROPS FOR DYNAMIC NEW SOLO ALBUM 'PROSPECT HILL,' OUT JULY 22 ON MUSIC MAKER RELIEF FOUNDATION

Dom Flemons – founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and American Songster – will release his third solo album 'Prospect Hill' on July 22 on Music Maker Relief Foundation. 'Prospect Hill' finds Flemons digging deeply into ragtime, Piedmont blues, spirituals, southern folk music, string band music, jug band music, fife and drum music, and ballads idioms with showmanship and humor, reinterpreting the music to suite 21st century audiences.

Following a series of tour dates with a new generation of American roots musicians like Pokey LaFarge, Flemons will perform April 18 as part of the Brooklyn Folk Festival at the Bell House. He performed and spoke on WNYC Soundcheck in March to talk about his Oxford American essay on Gus Cannon.

Flemons has mastered a variety of instruments such as banjo, guitar, harmonica, fife, bones, bass drum, snare drum and quills. After a stint in New York City, Flemons has returned to his musical home of North Carolina.

Solo and with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Flemons has played live for over one million people within the past three years. As part of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, which he co-founded with Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson in 2005, he has played at a variety of festivals Newport Folk Festival, Bonnaroo, and the Grand Ole Opry.

Of his set at Sydney Festival, The Daily Telegraph (Australia) said this year, "Dom Flemons knocks 'em dead… a showstopper."

The New York Times called the Carolina Chocolate Drops "an end-to-end display of excellence," continuing, "They dip into styles of southern black music from the 1920s and ’30s—string- band music, jug-band music, fife and drum, early jazz—and beam their curiosity outward. They make short work of their instructive mission and spend their energy on things that require it: flatfoot dancing, jug playing, shouting."

Rolling Stone observed, "The Carolina Chocolate Drops are...revisiting, with a joyful vengeance, black string-band and jug-band music of the Twenties and Thirties—the dirt-floor dance electricity of the Mississippi Sheiks and Cannon’s Jug Stompers."

The Guardian said, "An appealing grab-bag of antique country, blues, jug band hits and gospel hollers, all given an agreeably downhome production. The Carolina Chocolate Drops are still the most electrifying acoustic act around."

'Dom Flemons, American Songster, Presents: Prospect Hill' Track List

1. Til' the Seas Run Dry
2. Polly Put the Kettle On
3. But They Got it Fixed Right On
4. Have I Stayed Away Too Long?
5. Georgia Drumbeat
6. I Can't Do it Anymore
7. Sonoran Church Two-Step
8. Too Long I've Been Gone
9. Marching Up to Prospect Hill
10. It's a Good Thing
11. Grotto Beat
12. Hot Chicken
13. San Francisco Baby
14. My Money Never Runs Out

LAURELYN DOSSETT: FROM NC SECRET TO NATIONAL STAGE VIA LEVON HELM'S BARN

DOSSETT BRINGS TOGETHER ROOTS ALL-STARS FROM CAROLINA CHOCOLATE DROP TO JOHN HARTFORD BAND ALUM FOR 'THE GATHERING,' GORGEOUS ALBUM OF OBSCURE AND ORIGINAL WINTER AND CHRISTMAS MUSIC

If it weren't for Levon Helm, Laurelyn Dossett might still be one of North Carolina's best-kept secrets. Helm included Dossett's "Anna Lee" on his GRAMMY-winning album 'Dirt Farmer,' a surprise to her until its release, and his new concert album 'Ramble At The Ryman.' When she later opened a Midnight Ramble, Helm says, "There's the lady that wrote that beautiful song that sounds 300 years old."

This month, 'Dirt Farmer' producer Larry Campbell heard Dossett's most recent project, 'The Gathering,' a gorgeous union of Piedmont- and Appalachian-style musicians Rhiannon Giddens (of the Carolina Chocolate Drops), Mike Compton (John Hartford Band, Nashville Bluegrass Band, Elvis Costello & The Sugarcanes), Joe Newberry (Big Medicine), Jason Sypher (Susan McKeown), and Dossett in a cycle of original and obscure music capturing a North Carolina winter night. Campbell said, "The combination of heart and intimacy on The Gathering feels like a warm wood-smoke fire on a cold North Carolina winter's night."

Check out video on the making of the album here.

Stream the song "Lights in the Lowlands."

Dossett has also graced the stage of Prairie Home Companion, with her band Polecat Creek.

Yet despite her status as a national artist, she captures the visions, characters, stories, smells, and kinships of her home state. 'The Gathering' grew out of – and revolves around – a six-song cycle commissioned by the North Carolina Symphony.

She is a recipient of the North Carolina Arts Council Music Fellowship. North Carolina's Our State has praised "that crystalline, heart-tug of a voice that still makes people weep," continuing, "Dossett writes about our South and our dance with religion and nature, love and loss… She’s become a songwriter people say they can’t forget." Another local magazine O Henry echoed those comments, saying, "Dossett has a gift: storytelling. [And] her voice is pure honey."