The number of legendary musicians who have called North Carolina home is staggering. It's hard to imagine what music would sound like today without the contributions of artists like John Coltrane, Nina Simone, Earl Scruggs, and Elizabeth Cotten. It's also exciting to think about where we're headed and how artists like J. Cole and 9th Wonder will help shape future generations.
All of these artists have stories worth telling that will live on for generations to come and the North Carolina based muralist Scott Nurkin is putting in the work to make sure their names and faces are front of mind in their home towns. Since 2020 he's been traveling across North Carolina painting murals of important musicians in the towns they were born as part of a project known as the NC Musician Murals Trail.
Nurkin grew up in Charlotte in the late 1980s and early 1990s. After spending some time at Rhodes College, a small school in Memphis, he eventually transferred to the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill to attend the art program there. He was also a budding musician, so Chapel Hill was a perfect landing spot for him.
"I was in like four bands at the time," he said. "The scene in Chapel Hill was so vibrant then. Anything from folk/hippy stuff to cool house parties and punk shows to reggae shows and awesome jazz. On any given night you could wander from Local 506 to Go! Studios or The Cave, or Nightlight and you were never disappointed."
At the same time that Nurkin was busy being a musician, he was also earning a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting and drawing from UNC. One day in his art history class, his professor asked the students to raise their hand if they want to be a professional artist. Nurkin was the only one whose hand went up.
"I was like, 'Oh crap,'" he remembered.
He then learned from his professor that the muralist Michael Brown had received a grant to hire interns for some local projects. Nurkin signed up and started that job the summer after he earned his degree in 2000.
"We did like four or five murals, and then when the internship wrapped up I basically begged him to take me on as his assistant," he said. "He reluctantly agreed, so I ended up working for him for a few years."
Nurkin says that those years working with Brown were the most formative of his career.
"He taught me way more than I ever learned in art school for sure. Just being hands on and learning how to get up on a ladder and hold your paints and how to make things work from a distance."
While Nurkin was learning the skills that would ultimately lead him to where he is today as a muralist, he wasn't giving up on his dreams of making it in the music business. The work schedule that comes with being an artist allowed him to devote a good chunk of his time to his music too.
"I was very much trying my best to become a rock star," he said. "I wanted one of my bands to hit. At that time a lot of indie bands from Chapel Hill were getting notoriety and it wasn't unfeasible to think you might get picked up by a label and they might pay you to tour."
Being in his early 20s at the time, Nurkin figured he could balance both careers, and he did during a lot of the early 2000s. Eventually he and his wife had a kid, and it became harder to double task, so he decided to focus more on painting.
"I sort of took every job I could get. I was painting little girl's bedrooms and rich people's foyers and that's all led me to where I'm at today. I've had some pitfalls and some successes. Every day comes with its own challenges, but most days it's pretty awesome."
His most recent and recognizable success is the NC Musician Murals project. The monumental project started off small inside of Pepper's Pizza, a mainstay of Chapel Hill's Franklin Street from 1987 until it shuttered in 2013. Adorning the motto "A Sunny Place For Shady People," Pepper's was a crucial hang out for college students and townies. Its owner, David "Pepper" Harvey was a good friend of Nurkin.
When Pepper's moved from its original location to a bigger space a few doors down, Harvey told Nurkin he could do whatever he wanted to with one of the walls in exchange for free pizza for life.
"I had this bright idea of doing musicians," he said. "I had just learned that John Coltrane and Nina Simone and Thelonious Monk were all from North Carolina and it blew my mind. So I did portraits of 18 or 20 musicians, and I made a map for the back of the menus that correlated where they were all born."
After Pepper's closed in 2013 Nurkin had the idea to turn his portraits into murals that lived in the hometowns of each of the musicians he had drawn. He had some traction for the idea, but nothing really took off until COVID hit. At that point Nurkin teamed up with fellow UNC alum and Hopscotch Music Festival co-founder Greg Lowenhagen to pitch the idea to several towns across the state.
"Greg's presence is unavoidable. He can go into a room and sell an idea," Nurkin said.
During COVID, Nurkin learned that a lot of the towns that had shown interest in the project in the past suddenly had some extra room in their budgets due to festivals and other events being canceled. The first of these murals to go up was on the side of a historic opera house in Hamlet and featured the saxophonist and composer John Coltrane.
"I literally got a phone call from the people in Hamlet and they were like 'Hey, we found some money. Can you get it done by June 30?' and I was like, 'I'll be there tomorrow.' I knew that if I could do one and show it to all the other towns then this would eventually work," he said.
The next gig came from a similar situation. Nurkin got a call from Shelby and they asked him to do two murals, one of country musician Don Gibson and another of bluegrass icon and innovator Earl Scruggs. After that it was Roberta Flack in her hometown of Black Mountain. The momentum was growing. Today Nurkin has painted close to 30 murals across North Carolina and he doesn't plan on stopping any time soon. At the time he was interviewed for this story, he was in Kannapolis working on a mural of George Clinton.
"We've got 30 more we could do in North Carolina, easily, " he said.
Nurkin has painted murals of other non-musical North Carolina legends, too. In downtown Durham you'll find one of the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray. Earlier this year, one of his most well-known murals of UNC basketball coach Dean Smith was torn down after being up for a decade.
"That's probably the one with the most notoriety because ESPN would take a shot of it before every UNC basketball game," he said. "When I told people it was coming down there was this overwhelming outpouring of love and support from the community."
While some people feel that a great mural should live forever, Nurkin says he's happy if his murals get to the ten year mark.
"I have no bones about the fact that it's paint on the wall," he said. "They're not marble statues, they're going to deteriorate over time. So if you get ten years out of a mural, I feel like you've won."
