His music has been played on WNCW since 2001, on albums of various genres and record labels, from his various hometowns of NYC, LA, and Nashville. “I'm not just a flat-picking folkie,” he says. “I'm not just a Woody Guthrie disciple. The only records I play at home are old country bluesmen, but I also love the Velvet Underground. I love rock & roll music and beats. Folk music is the bedrock upon which my whole musical path was built, but I'm still building. I'm still learning.” His latest album “Find Your Way”, has just been released on Black Mesa Records. Fresh from a tour of Japan, Tim plays Seeker Coffee in Old Fort on Thursday, Citizen Vinyl in Asheville on Friday, and Rare Bird Farm outside Hot Springs on Saturday.

Get to know this powerful blues & rock band out of Asheville, fronted by singer Melissa McKinney. A frequent collaborator with LEAF Global Arts, she and her band will be part of the lineup of the LEAF Global Arts Retreat in Black Mountain May 9-12. In addition to fronting this band, Melissa keeps busy with all sorts of projects: she directs the One Voice Project, a program at her Stages Music School for teaching the youth about the music business while making a positive difference in the world. She’s also a co-founder of the WTF (Women To the Front!) Music Festival, she assists the AVL Fest (with its 2nd one coming up in August throughout Asheville), and she’s curating a new festival called Black Mountain Blues happening July 12. And, she’s a mama!

We love getting to know musicians considered “on the rise” and gathering momentum in their careers, and such is the case with Jesse Roper. Hailing from a rural community in British Colombia, Jesse’s been playing a variety of stages across the continent and Europe these past few years, and his soul/Americana/rock sound was captured well on his most recent release “Horizons.” Jesse and his band visit us in Studio B on Monday following their Sunday night show at the Grey Eagle in Asheville.

Friday, May 24, 2024 | The Orange Peel | Asheville, NC

Sunday, May 19, 2024 | Silverados Music Park | Black Mountain, NC

Saturday, May 18, 2024 | The Orange Peel | Asheville, NC

Starting Sunday, May 12th, Don Pedi, the long-time host of the Close To Home, will be moving his popular traditional American music show to WNCW on Sundays from 6 to 7 pm.

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Join us for this recent MerleFest discovery, a Scottish trio that is certainly rooted in the traditional music of Scotland, but also incorporates Eastern European, Progressive Jazz and American Old-Time influences into their most unique sound. Ayrshire-born John Langan sits upon an a foot percussion rig of his own devising and fronting the trio on guitar and vocals. To his right stands Alastair Caplin, a classically trained violinist equally discerning in both the London Prog-Folk/Jazz scenes he occupied for years and also the blistering traditional reels and jigs of his native Outer Hebrides. Stage left is the domain of Angus-born Dave Tunstall and his deep double bass bowing. They are in the midst of an intense East Coast tour that included Louisiana and Georgia immediately following their MerleFest debut, and they play the High Gravity Room at Sierra Nevada Brewery in Mills River Thursday evening, along with Paul Thorn.

Justin was raised in coastal Virginia, and has spent his life studying that state’s Piedmont Blues tradition. When it comes to his guitar heroes, he’s also inspired by the likes of Phil Cook, J Roddy Walston, Hiss Golden Messenger, and Bon Iver. But his true music loves is prominent on his latest album “Golden Country Volume 1”, and on a new single, a traditional African American spiritual inspired by a 1929 Blind Willie Johnson recording. “The blues is not a box,” he says. “They try to make it seem like it’s just twelve bars or it’s gotta be sad or it’s gotta be this or that, but if you listen to so much old pre-war blues, there are so many feelings involved. There’s happy blues, sad blues, just got paid and spent all my money blues, gonna go see my girl late at night blues, there’s blues for anything. It doesn’t have to be a specific form or feeling, it can be whatever you want it to be, but you know it when you hear it.”