SOT Live Music

A four-piece group from Chapel Hill brings classic funk back to North Carolina’s music scene — with a modern twist. The band JULIA. draws a lot of its influence from 1970s funk, including Parliament-Funkadelic.

Lisa Rhodes was born in a small town outside a small city on the Gulf Coast of Texas and as a lesbian aspiring musician, she could not wait to get out of dodge. Rhodes would spend much of her younger years in Austin where she wanted to be a rock star.

No one ever asks Henbrain to turn up the bass. The band features two electric basses chugging alongside one another, which defines its low-frequency acid rock sound.

Michelle Sontheimer plays lead axe, running her sound through a guitar amplifier and effects processor, which produces a meaty buzz that she describes as a “2,000 pound angry bee.” Cutting through the low-frequency symphony are Erika Libero’s vocals. Her lyrics are a select cross-section of mythology, exploring topics from the Greek Elysian Fields to a Nekomata, an ancient Japanese demon cat. The band also includes Ryan Yancey on bass and drummer Derrek Spronk.

Barry Gray’s debut release is the culmination of a family man’s slow-burning reflections.

When North Carolina duo Violet Bell started recording their debut album, they planned to feature band members Lizzy Ross and Omar Ruiz-Lopez plus a drummer. But once the tape started rolling, Ross and Ruiz-Lopez realized the music warranted a bigger sound.

Irene Kelley has been a force on Nashville’s Music Row for decades. She spent 20 years writing or co-writing hit songs for country artists like Ricky Skaggs and Loretta Lynn. But at the same time she was quietly working on her career as a performer.

Bluegrass band Carolina Blue formed out of necessity.

Singer-songwriter Rachael Hurwitz struggled to make it as a musician in New York City. She eventually decided to head south in search of a more encouraging culture.

For almost a decade House of Dues has been part of the Triad music scene. But they got their start playing at a Mardi Gras party. Led by guitarist and vocalist David Bolton, the group counts BB King, The Nevilles and Herbie Hancock as the inspiration behind their blues, funk, and R&B blend. House of Dues plays at Fishers Grille in Greensboro on Tuesday, Sept. 10 at 7 p.m.

Shelby Smoak was born a bleeder. As a child with hemophilia, he spent a lot of time on crutches, using a cane or limping, but he has long refused to let fear control his life.

Durham-based, local legend Kym Register, who performs as Loamlands, returns this summer with their sophomore album “Lez Dance.”

Singer and guitarist Dave Ray Cecil began writing music when he was six years old. As a child, he strung notes together on the piano and secretly used his brother’s guitar to write songs.

Artist Sonny Miles is on a journey back to himself. After a year spent refining mixtape collaborations, he is dropping a new EP: “Gamma.” It is a return to his roots in acoustic soul and pays homage to the last three years he spent learning beat making and hip-hop performance.

Harvey Dalton Arnold found fame on Southern stages, rocking out in bell-bottoms topped with big buckles. But before he opened for Lynyrd Skynyrd touring the country with The Outlaws, Arnold was helping his dad sell Ford tractors and raise chickens in Duplin County. He grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in Rose Hill, a town of just over 1,500 that breaks out the world’s largest frying pan for its yearly Poultry Jubilee.

Heather McEntire is best known as the lead singer and songwriter for the group Mount Moriah. After 10 years with the band, with three albums under their belt, the group took a hiatus, and McEntire tried her hand at a solo album.

Rebecca Newton is a well-known name on the North Carolina music scene. The longtime musician and artist promoter has spent decades performing in groups and working to promote her bands and other people's music.

North Carolina’s strong cultural traditions in music, crafts, dance and food have been evolving for generations. Millennials are now taking the helm and putting their own spin on various folk and traditional art forms.

Barefoot Modern recently walked away with the Best Alternative Indie Award for their musical submission at the Richmond International Film Festival. They beat out more than 2,000 bands to earn that spot and have since set their sights on garnering even more national attention with their roster of original tracks.

Jake Xerxes Fussell's family history plays a significant role in his musical output. The son of a folklorist, curator and photographer spent his childhood listening to old bluesmen and Native American artists his father was recording.

The Asheville-based swing group Queen Bee and The Honeylovers made their entire debut album a tribute to their beloved hometown. “Asheville” came out in late April and features tunes about the historical characters and legends of the city in the style of a 1920s swing record.

For Juan Álamo, rhythm just comes naturally. He has a passion for percussion that surfaced when he was a little boy growing up in Puerto Rico. Juan parlayed that passion into serious classical study of the marimba, an instrument similar to a xylophone but bigger and with a deeper tone. In his recently-released album “Ruta Panoramica,” Álamo marries the Latin rhythms of his hometown with his classical training and a love of jazz to create a unique fusion sound not typically heard from a marimba. 

When “West Side Story” debuted on Broadway in 1957, it was an instant hit. The new take on “Romeo and Juliet” set in 1950s New York City earned seven Tony nominations in its first year.

By 1961, the musical was turned into a movie that was equally successful and took home 10 Academy Awards.

Sam Frazier is a Greensboro-based singer, songwriter and musician with two solo CDs under his belt in addition to collaborations with some of the area’s top talent. The lyrics in his original songs move between silly and soulful, as his poetic storytelling speaks to our all-too-human nature. 

Durham-based guitar player Jon Shain and bassist FJ Ventre have known each other since high school. They have played music together on and off for more than three decades, and Ventre has played on or produced all of Shain’s CDs.

Los Angeles-based artist Caitlin Linney grew up in an environment that could not be more different from Hollywood. Linney was raised on 10 acres of farmland in Efland and attended Carolina Friends School, where her imagination was nourished and her creativity encouraged. That environment fostered confidence and a passion to try things that today make her blush — like singing original songs in front of her whole school when she was just in sixth grade.

We've teamed up with Come Hear NC on a podcast series that explores North Carolina music one song at a time. This week, Chatham County Line's Dave Wilson tells us why he loves 'Southbound' by Doc & Merle Watson.

Andy Eversole does not like to go places without his banjo. But that does not mean he sticks close to home. His most recent recording project took him to India to capture the sounds of the subcontinent and incorporate them into his Southern-rooted banjo music. He journeyed to New Delhi, Agra, Rajasthan and the Kashmir region and collaborated with musicians he met there. He discovered that Indian musicians have a penchant for playing live and that their cows and car horns do not stop for the occasion. Eversole documented the trip in a YouTube documentary. 

Chatham County was once best known for its rabbits. The wild animals were so plentiful in the region at the turn of the 20th century that thousands were shipped out as cash crops each year. This piece of forgotten North Carolina history is just one story of many that inspires the new folk duo Sarah McCombie and Austin McCombie. 

Graham Nash is best known as a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer, songwriter and musician. A co-founder of the British pop group The Hollies, Nash went on to form a little group called Crosby, Stills & Nash. Both groups would get him inducted into the Hall of Fame, but his work with Crosby, Stills, Nash and later, Young, became the voice of a generation. Their self-titled debut album was released in 1969 with huge success in the U.S. and their legacy would include songs that remain part of American culture.

The Triangle Youth Jazz Ensemble may be a group of teenagers but they pack a serious musical punch. For the fourth year in a row, the ensemble made the cut to compete on stage at New York’s Lincoln Center as part of the Essentially Ellington Competition. More than 100 bands tried out for the competition with only the top 15 earning a spot.