Music for the Mountains – A Concert Benefiting Western North Carolina is taking place this weekend in Raleigh at Red Hat Amphitheater. It’s one of many benefit concerts that have quickly come together in the wake of the devastation caused by Helene. This show features a headlining set from Old Crow Medicine Show, plus sets from Chatham County Line, BJ Barham of American Aquarium, and Fancy Gap.
Ahead of the show, WUNC Music's Brian Burns caught up with Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show to talk about what this show means to the band.
Follow WUNC's special coverage of Helene here.
How did you get involved in this particular show?
The folks in Raleigh reached out and asked us if we would come play this benefit and we didn't think for a second before we said emphatically, "Yes, of course, we'll be there. Whatever we can do."
I think there's a kind of hamstrung feeling going around for people like me and other musicians who really draw their biggest inspiration from the mountains of western North Carolina, that there's nothing we can do. There are folks in the mountains now doing the hard work, helping to clean up and rebuild. FEMA is there doing the hard work. It's been about four weeks and we're already seeing how quickly heads and eyes turn away from things like this, so I think the best thing I can do is continue to raise awareness and let people know that the problems have really just begun.
Tell me a bit about what Western North Carolina means to the band.
Well, if you play a fiddle or a banjo in your band, without the contribution of that region up there in western NC, we wouldn't have those art forms. The headwaters of American song runs somewhere between about the Pigeon River into the French Broad and up around Watauga into the Tennessee River watershed.
I like to talk about rivers when I talk about music, because it all rolls together. We're all playing one American song and I wish we could convert that to cash and send that dough up to Mitchell County, and Buncombe County, and Avery County, and Cobb County, Tennessee. These are places that have given so much to the world, through music, through literature, through crafts and culture and so, you know, it's a sad thing that the cost basis for that doesn't mean that there’s money in the bank.
Tell us how you think music helps people heal in situations like this.
I think that when things like this happen, our hearts tend to look to songs to help explain. I was watching a CNN interview with a 93-year-old person outside of Micaville, North Carolina, and they just started singing "Dwelling In Beulah Land." I think the songs that speak the best to the kind of situation we're in are songs that are lamentations, songs that call to the creator and say, Oh, great spirit, look at me in my time of need, in my time of sorrow. Grant me vision. Grant me speed.
Music From The Mountains takes place at Red Hat Amphitheater this Sunday. All proceeds from the show will go to The Community Foundation of western North Carolina, which provides essential resources to families and communities as they begin the long process of recovery and rebuilding.
