Join us for our free, family-friendly Roots in the Garden concert series celebrating live music and community in the heart of Boone!
Music will begin at 5:30 for all of the concerts in the series.
All of the concerts will also feature visual artists, with their work auctioned off at the end of the evenings to benefit the Gardens.
Beer and wine will be available for purchase. Picnics are welcome, and we will have food trucks as well. Please note, no dogs or glass containers in the Gardens.
All proceeds will support the Gardens’ mission to promote the benefits of native plants and healthy ecosystems, and provide a community green space in the heart of the High Country.
SCHEDULE
- May 28: Adam Church Band Country artist Adam Church grew up around Boone in the Appalachian Mountains and is known for what he calls “country music the Carolina way.” An App State alum and longtime mainstay of the Boone music scene, Church played in Luke Combs’s first band during their college days and draws inspiration from fellow App State Mountaineer Eric Church. He channels his mountain roots into songs like “Blame It On the Backwoods.” Kyle Horton opens the evening.
- June 18: MAMA (formerly Mama & The Ruckus) is an Asheville blues and soul band fronted by powerhouse vocalist Melissa McKinney. The group has earned a string of accolades over the past few years, winning the 2025 MerleFest Band Competition (after McKinney took home the same prize as a solo artist in 2024) and, most recently, placing 2nd at the 2026 International Blues Challenge in Memphis.
- July 16: Led by singer-songwriter Clint Roberts, Asheville’s Holler Choir lives at the crossroads of old-time, Americana, and bluegrass — combining haunting harmonies, stirring string compositions, and heart-wrenching ballads. Their debut full-length album, Songs Before They Write Themselves, was recorded at the historic Echo Mountain Studios and produced by Grammy-winner Michael Ashworth of the Steep Canyon Rangers.
- July 30: Mt. Airy’s DaShawn Hickman is one of today’s foremost practitioners of Sacred Steel, a blues-gospel pedal steel tradition rooted in the Pentecostal-Holiness churches of the 1930s. Inducted into the Sacred Steel Hall of Fame in 2023, Hickman performed in Cirque du Soleil’s Song Blazers in 2024 and was the pedal steel player in Steve Ray Ladson’s band, which reached the finals of America’s Got Talent in 2025. He performs alongside his wife, vocalist Wendy Hickman.
- August 20: Closing out the season is TANASI, an award-winning Asheville-based “worldgrass” trio uniting three acclaimed roots artists: Billy Cardine on dobro and slide, MerleFest-winning songwriter Anya Hinkle on vocals and guitar, and Mary Lucey (Biscuit Burners, Uncle Earl) on vocals, upright bass, and clawhammer banjo. Recipients of a 2025 National Endowment for the Arts USArtists International Grant, the trio has performed on stages including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Ryman Auditorium, Bonnaroo, and MerleFest.
For more information, visit danielboonenativegardens.org/music
