Wilkesboro is a town in and the county seat of Wilkes County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 3,687 at the 2020 census. The town is located along the south bank of the Yadkin River, directly opposite the town of North Wilkesboro. Wilkesboro is a Small Town Main Street community and has recently revitalized its historic downtown to include the Carolina West Wireless Community Commons, Wilkes Communications Pavilion, Heritage Square and Splash Pad. Cub Creek Park is adjacent to the downtown and contains many amenities, which include baseball, walking trails, mountain biking trails, trout fishing, dog park, basketball, tennis, and pickleball courts, picnic shelters, etc. Wilkesboro is also the home of the annual MerleFest, Carolina in the Fall, and Brushy Mountain Peach & Heritage festivals.
The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as traditional music, traditional folk music, contemporary folk music, vernacular music, or roots music. Many traditional songs have been sung within the same family or folk group for generations, and sometimes trace back to such origins as the British Isles, Mainland Europe, or Africa. Musician Mike Seeger once famously commented that the definition of American folk music is "...all the music that fits between the cracks."
Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, clogging, and buck dancing. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering on a combination of fiddle and plucked string instruments, most often the banjo, guitar, and mandolin. Together, they form an ensemble called the string band, which has historically been the most common configuration to play old-time music. The genre is considered a precursor to modern country music.
The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds. It rose to international popularity fueled by unprecedented sales of LP records and helped alter the direction of popular music in the U.S.
Thomas C. Dula was a former Confederate soldier who was convicted of murdering Laura Foster. National publicity from newspapers such as The New York Times turned Dula's story into a folk legend. Although Laura was murdered in Wilkes County, North Carolina, Dula was tried, convicted, and hanged in Statesville. Considerable controversy surrounded the case. In subsequent years, a folk song was written, and many oral traditions were passed down, regarding the sensational occurrences surrounding Laura Foster's murder and Dula's subsequent execution. The Kingston Trio recorded a hit version of the murder ballad in 1958.
Appalachian music is the music of the region of Appalachia in the Eastern United States. Traditional Appalachian music is derived from various influences, including the ballads, hymns and fiddle music of the British Isles, the African music and blues of early African Americans, and to a lesser extent the music of Continental Europe.
Trade is an unincorporated community in Johnson County, Tennessee. The easternmost community in the state, Trade is located between the towns of Mountain City, Tennessee, and Boone, North Carolina, along US 421. Generally considered Tennessee's oldest community, Trade was established as a trading outpost in the 18th century, and was visited by English-speakers as early as 1673. At an elevation of 3,133 feet, it is the highest community in Tennessee.
Murder ballads are a subgenre of the traditional ballad form dealing with a crime or a gruesome death. Their lyrics form a narrative describing the events of a murder, often including the lead-up and/or aftermath. The term refers to the content, and may be applied to traditional ballads, part of oral culture.
"John Hardy" is a traditional American folk song based on the life of a railroad worker living in McDowell County, West Virginia in the Spring of 1893. The historical John Hardy is believed to have gotten into a drunken dispute during a craps game held near Keystone, and subsequently killed a man named Thomas Drews. Hardy was found guilty of murder in the first degree, and was hanged on January 19, 1894, with 3,000 people allegedly in attendance. Hardy is believed to have made peace with the Lord the morning before his death by being baptized in a river.
The American folk music revival began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Big Bill Broonzy, Richard Dyer-Bennet, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob Niles, Susan Reed, Paul Robeson, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Cisco Houston had enjoyed a limited general popularity in the 1930s and 1940s. The revival brought forward styles of American folk music that had in earlier times contributed to the development of country and western, blues, jazz, and rock and roll music.
Frank Noah Proffitt was an Appalachian old time banjoist who preserved the song "Tom Dooley" in the form we know it today and was a key figure in inspiring musicians of the 1960s and 1970s to play the traditional five-string banjo.
The Kingston Trio is the Kingston Trio's debut album, released in 1958. It entered the album charts in late October 1958, where it resided for nearly four years, spending one week at #1 in early 1959. It was awarded an RIAA gold album on January 19, 1961.
Once Upon a Time is a live album by the American folk music group the Kingston Trio, recorded in 1966 and released in 1969. It was originally released as a double-LP with a three-page booklet and reached number 163 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart. The lead-off single was "One Too Many Mornings" b/w "Scotch and Soda".
Gilliam Banmon Grayson was an American old-time fiddle player and singer. Mostly blind from infancy, Grayson is chiefly remembered for a series of sides recorded with guitarist Henry Whitter between 1927 and 1930 that would later influence numerous country, bluegrass, and rock musicians. Grayson wrote much of his own material, but was also instrumental in adapting several traditional Appalachian ballads to fiddle and guitar formats. His music has been recorded or performed by musicians such as Bob Dylan, Doc Watson, Mick Jagger, the Kingston Trio, and dozens of bluegrass artists, including the Stanley Brothers and Mac Wiseman.
Aspen Gold is an album by the American folk music group the Kingston Trio, released in 1979. The group consisted of the line up of Bob Shane, George Grove, and Roger Gambill.
"Cumberland Gap" is an Appalachian folk song that likely dates to the latter half of the 19th century and was first recorded in 1924. The song is typically played on banjo or fiddle, and well-known versions of the song include instrumental versions as well as versions with lyrics. A version of the song appeared in the 1934 book, American Ballads and Folk Songs, by folk song collector John Lomax. Woody Guthrie recorded a version of the song at his Folkways sessions in the mid-1940s, and the song saw a resurgence in popularity with the rise of bluegrass and the American folk music revival in the 1950s. In 1957, the British musician Lonnie Donegan had a No. 1 UK hit with a skiffle version of "Cumberland Gap".
Roger Sprung was an American banjo player and teacher best known for introducing authentic bluegrass banjo picking styles to the folk music community in the north and for the eclectic manner in which he adapted bluegrass banjo techniques to music of other genres. His 1963 album Progressive Bluegrass may have been the first use of that title, later applied to a subgenre of bluegrass music by him and others.
The Legend of Tom Dooley is a 1959 American Western film directed by Ted Post and starring Michael Landon, Jo Morrow, Jack Hogan, Richard Rust, Dee Pollock and Ken Lynch. It was based on the 90-year-old folk song "Tom Dooley", which had been inspired by the real-life case of convicted murderer Tom Dula. The ballad, as sung by The Kingston Trio, was a big hit in 1958 and is the theme song of the film. The movie's plot is consistent with the lyrics of the song, but otherwise bears little resemblance to the actual murder case.
Ferguson is an unincorporated community in Wilkes County, North Carolina, United States. Ferguson is located on North Carolina Highway 268, 12.3 miles (19.8 km) west-southwest of Wilkesboro. Ferguson has a post office with ZIP code 28624.
Francis Moreland Warner was an American folk song collector, singer, musician, and YMCA executive. He and his wife Anne Warner collected and preserved many previously unpublished traditional song versions from the eastern United States, including "Tom Dooley", "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands", "The Days of Forty-Nine", and "Gilgarrah Mountain", a New Hampshire version of the song more widely known as "Whiskey in the Jar".
