While enrolled at Warren Wilson College in the mid-1970s, she met David Holt and began a lifelong friendship with her mentor. Laura began playing and performing with Holt and numerous other players around the Asheville area. In 1984 she took over David Holt’s chair in the Luke Smathers Band. She learned the mountain swing style that the Smathers brothers created after hearing swing music on the radio in their formative days. Laura has also played music with Josh Goforth, with whom she has toured extensively in the US and Scotland as well as David Holt and the Lightning Bolts and the Midnight Plowboys. Laura has recorded numerous solo albums and is instrumental in maintaining the tradition of shaped note singing from the Christian Harmony in workshops at MerleFest and Blue Ridge Old Time Music Week at Mars Hill University and annual singings across the region. Proficient in instruments including banjo, guitar, and autoharp, she also teaches multiple instruments and offers vocal coaching. She has vast experience teaching residencies in Southern Mountain Music to public school children of all ages. In her role as Executive Director of the Madison County Arts Council she helps administer the Junior Appalachian Musician program to elementary and middle school students in Madison County, NC.
Don Gibson was one of the most influential forces in the country music industry from the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Few people around the English speaking world fail to remember Don’s two best known compositions, “Sweet Dreams” which became one of Patsy Cline’s most indelible hits, and the Ray Charles classic single “I Can’t Stop Loving You”. His third unforgettable country classic, “Oh, Lonesome Me” was later a crossover to rock and rockabilly band playlists. Don’s own recordings of these songs and over 510 others were enormously accomplished and successful. Don once said “I consider myself a songwriter who sings rather than a singer who writes songs.” That perspective is affirmed by the staggering evidence of his cross genre appeal and relevance which continues to this very day. Don Gibson, the Sad Poet, was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1973, an honor he shares with the likes of Bob Dylan, Jimmy Buffet and Johnny Cash. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001.
Phil Jamison is nationally known as a dance caller, old-time musician, and flatfoot dancer. He has called dances, performed, and taught at music festivals and dance events throughout the U.S. and overseas since the early 1970s, including close to forty years as a member of the Green Grass Cloggers. For eighteen years (1992 – 2009), he served as the Dance Stage coordinator at MerleFest. Phil's flatfoot dancing was featured in the film, Songcatcher, for which he also served as Traditional Dance consultant. Over the last thirty years, Jamison has done extensive research in the area of Appalachian dance, and his recently-published book Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics: Roots and Branches of Southern Appalachian Dance (University of Illinois Press, 2015) tells the story behind the square dances, step dances, reels, and other forms of dance practiced in southern Appalachia. Phil teaches mathematics as well as Appalachian music and dance at Warren Wilson College, in Asheville, North Carolina, where for twenty-five years, he coordinated the Old-Time Music and Dance Week at the Swannanoa Gathering.
Phil Jamison is nationally known as a dance caller, old-time musician, and flatfoot dancer. He has called dances, performed, and taught at music festivals and dance events throughout the U.S. and overseas since the early 1970s, including close to forty years as a member of the Green Grass Cloggers. For eighteen years (1992 – 2009), he served as the Dance Stage coordinator at Merlefest. Phil's flatfoot dancing was featured in the film, Songcatcher, for which he also served as Traditional Dance consultant. Over the last thirty years, Jamison has done extensive research in the area of Appalachian dance, and his recently-published book Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics: Roots and Branches of Southern Appalachian Dance (University of Illinois Press, 2015) tells the story behind the square dances, step dances, reels, and other forms of dance practiced in southern Appalachia. Phil teaches mathematics as well as Appalachian music and dance at Warren Wilson College, in Asheville, North Carolina, where for twenty-five years, he coordinated the Old-Time Music and Dance Week at the Swannanoa Gathering.
Jimmie Rodgers was born on September 8, 1897 in Geiger, Alabama. Jimmie traveled a lot looking for work on the railroad and any opportunity to entertain, earning as much as he could to support his family. In January of 1927, Jimmie headed to Asheville, North Carolina. Jimmie fell in with the local musicians and was part of several bands, one of which was able to secure a weekly thirty-minute spot on the local radio station WWNC. Ralph Peer with Victor Records was holding auditions in Bristol, Tennessee for new recording artists. Jimmie Rodgers headed to audition. On August 4, 1927, Jimmie Rodgers recorded his first record, “The Soldier’s Sweetheart” and “Sleep Baby Sleep.” Jimmie’s next recordings were in Camden and his first “Blue Yodel” otherwise known as “T for Texas” was recorded with “Away Out on the Mountain” skyrocketing him to stardom. As his fame grew, he cultivated dual images that permitted him to be “America’s Blue Yodeler” and “The Singing Brakeman” and a sharp-dressed dandy all at the same time. Jimmie Rodgers received many awards for his music including induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Alabama Hall of Fame, the Blues Hall of Fame, the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame, a United States Commemorative Stamp, the W. D. Handy Award, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.