He went east to discover the final frontier.

In 1937, Californian Joseph S. Hall was a 30-year-old graduate student. Hired by the National Park Service for a summer job, Hall was commissioned to seek out and capture the essence of the unique people, places and things amid the high peaks and hollers of the Southern Appalachian Smokies.

With notepad in-hand, he jumped into a pickup truck and headed into the isolated landscape, coming out with innumerable pages of stories told in a unique dialect — one that evolved partly out of the Scotch-Irish and German ancestory of mountain settlers, and partly, it seemed, from the mountains themselves.

By Dean Williams • Contributing Writer

Angela Faye Martin’s Anniversary, the follow-up CD to her Mark Linkous produced Pictures From Home, opens appropriately with the line “My heart is broken today/I’ve got some dreams that just won’t go away.” Martin resides with her husband Brent in a little old country house crowded with books and outsider art in the deep woods of Macon County near Franklin.

We’ve all done it.

At a middle school dance, high school prom, college formal, wedding reception, anniversary celebration, New Year’s Eve or perhaps on your kitchen floor during a lazy Saturday morning.

It’s “The Twist,” and Western North Carolina better watch out.

Apart from the fact that this is a remarkable recording, in terms of Martha Redbone’s liquid vocals and the harmonious blend of John McEuen’s instruments (banjo, guitar, dubro, fiddle, mandolin, autoharp and dulcimer), the combining of music with William Blake’s “songs” is an amazing achievement.

Raymond Fairchild is a man of few words.

But, it only takes those few words to truly grasp a man that ultimately lives up to myth and legend.

Mountain music, dancing and tradition will be on display once again on the shores of beautiful Lake Junaluska as the Smoky Mountain Folk Festival, now in its 42nd year, celebrates the culture and heritage of Western North Carolina.

When Doug Trantham was a kid, he wanted to impress his father.

“I was 10-years-old when my dad made a banjo,” he said. “That was around the house and I got interested in playing it. Banjo is my heart instrument. I learned to play clawhammer style and loved it.”

Picking up the instrument, Trantham had an urge to show his dad what he was made of.

By Charles and Cynthia Seeley • Guest Columnists

I am a visitor to Maggie Valley. My husband, two friends and I chose this area of the North Carolina mountains as our vacation destination by pure chance. Our goal was to see the beautiful Smoky Mountains while doing a little sightseeing at some of the well-known tourist places in the area. Something happened, however that made the Biltmore Estate, Dollywood and casinos, although nice, irrelevant. And that was Raymond Fairchild and his Maggie Valley Opry.

On a recent Thursday evening, my husband and I went to hear him. We knew he was a five-time world-champion banjo player. That would have been enough — just to have the opportunity to hear banjo music from a renowned musician was all that we had expected. We came away with a lifetime experience and a respect for the musician and his colleagues that goes far deeper than an evening of entertainment.

The strings of tradition and progress echoed from the back alley.

Upon further inspection (and a lone door cracked open), the harmonic tone was radiating from the mandolin of Darren Nicholson.

The Smoky Mountain Brass Quintet, quintet-in-residence at Western Carolina University, made a seven-day educational tour of Jamaica this summer to inspire the teaching and learning of brass instruments in the public schools there.