The historic Appalachian Theatre, has entertained audiences in the heart of downtown Boone, North Carolina since 1938.
Once a gorgeous 999-seat Art Deco movie house, the building closed in 2007 and sat empty and gutted for years. On October 14, 2019, the Appalachian Theatre re-opened its doors after a $10 million renovation that brought the distinctive Art Deco details back to this historic theatre and created a new 629-seat, state-of-the-art, acoustically fabulous venue for live concerts, films, plays, and dance performances. The spacious community room with historic murals provides Boone with the only downtown venue capable of hosting meetings and receptions for over 100 people.
Upcoming bands include:
- Thursday, January 12, 2023 – Trevor McKenzie & Jackson Cunningham, 7:00 pm. Local night. A new series, co-presented by the Appalachian Theatre and Joe Shannon’s Mountain Home Music, is slated for select Thursday evenings in January, February and March. Shows feature local artists and local student groups as openers.
- Sunday, January 15, 2023 – John McEuen and The Circle Band “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”, 7:00 pm. John McEuen has performed for 50 years worldwide with his banjo, fiddle, guitar, and mandolin. Often referred to as ‘the String Wizard’, he humorously weaves stories of his travels and family life (he has raised 7 kids), taking us on a multi-media show through where his musical path has taken him.
- Friday, January 27, 2023 – Jason Carter & Friends, 7:30 pm. True to his Kentucky roots, Carter pours all he has back into bluegrass. For thirty years, he has been the fiddle player for the Del McCoury Band—the most awarded group in bluegrass history. He’s won three Grammy awards, including 2018’s “Best Bluegrass Album” with the Travelin’ McCourys, of which he is a founding member. And he’s taken home five IBMAs for “Fiddle Player of the Year,” a staggering number that isn’t quite so crazy once you realize just how many bluegrass greats have turned to Carter for collaboration.
- Thursday, February 9, 2023 – The Burnett Sisters, 7:00 pm. Growing up playing music together in Boone, North Carolina, the sisters’ sound is focused around the type of breathtaking vocal harmonies that can only come from the unique bond shared by siblings, expertly complemented by tight instrumental arrangements and a bonafide love of the traditional songs they play. With a repertoire that’s equal parts old-time and bluegrass, country and gospel, this Billboard charting band navigates the diverse source material effortlessly, diving into the songs with an attention to detail and an appreciation for nuance that lends an authenticity and a feeling of genuine expression rarely matched in today’s traditional music.
- Thursday, February 23, 2023 – Mary Greene & Friends 7:00 pm. Mary Greene is a multi-instrumentalist who grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Boone and has a Master’s degree in Appalachian Studies. Her expertise in the region’s cultural arts coupled with experience as the director of educational services at the award-winning Appalachian Cultural Museum, at Appalachian State University, equip her with multiple views of Appalachian culture.
- Friday, February 24, 2023 – Chatham Rabbits, 7:30 pm. As one of North Carolina’s most beloved roots music outfits, Chatham Rabbits has swiftly emerged from the fertile Americana scene in the Triangle. The husband-and-wife duo of Sarah and Austin McCombie favors rustic, minimalist acoustic arrangements—mainly clawhammer-style banjo and guitar that showcase deftness and maturity with their songwriting. The duo has a way of connecting with their audiences that is warm and universal.
- Friday, March 24, 2023 – Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road, 7:30 pm. Bluegrass Roots from Deep Gap, NC. Rapidly rising on the bluegrass scene, Billboard-charting artists Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road perform internationally and stateside winning both industry awards and the hearts of fans who turn out to see them at some of the industry’s most iconic venues.
- Friday, April 14, 2023 – Darin & Brooke Aldridge, 7:30 pm. “America’s Bluegrass Sweethearts”, Armed with the talents of the proverbial triple-threat of uniquely distinctive singing, commanding instrumental skills, and accomplished songwriting, Darin and Brooke continue to ascend to new heights in the industry while maintaining their easy-going, down-to-earth connection with audiences everywhere. Brooke is a four-time consecutive winner for Female Vocalist of the Year for the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA). She was nominated for a fifth time in 2021. Once a six-year member of The Country Gentlemen with the late Charlie Waller, Darin is a former IBMA Mentor of the Year and a truly gifted singer and multi-instrumentalist.
- Saturday, April 15, 2023 – Hometown Bluegrass featuring Surefire with the Mountain Home Bluegrass Boys, 7:30 pm. Since, forming in 2008, Surefire has become known for high-energy mountain-style bluegrass music. All long-time friends, Tom Isaacs (guitar), Robby Norris (mandolin), JM Trivette (Bass), and Tim Norris (banjo) are the hosts of the Red, White, and Bluegrass Jam at the American Legion in Blowing Rock. The band keeps things close to home, making the rounds of the regional festival scene and touring up and down the East coast. While they take their music very seriously, they have no interest in music for a living. The Mountain Home Bluegrass Boys have been a Mountain Home Music staple for the past 29 years. The stories behind the origins of the band lead directly back to Joe Shannon himself. Fronted by two-time national studio musician of the year David Johnson, a musician who plays anything with strings. The band also includes two-time national banjo champion and MerleFest and HendersonFest Guitar Champion Steve Lewis plus master musicians Scott Freeman on mandolin and Josh Scott on bass. Production Note: This event is a rental engagement presented by Joe Shannon’s Mountain Home Music. For more information and events please visit Mountain Home Music – Celebrating Appalachian Culture.
- Thursday, May 11, 2023 – The Slocan Ramblers, 7:30 pm. The Slocan Ramblers (2020 IBMA Momentum Band of the Year Award Winner & 2019 Juno Award Nominee) are Canada’s bluegrass band to watch. Rooted in tradition, fearlessly creative and possessing a bold, dynamic sound, The Slocans have become a leading light of today’s acoustic music scene. With a reputation for energetic live shows, impeccable musicianship and an uncanny ability to convert anyone within earshot into a lifelong fan, The Slocans have been winning over audiences from Merlefest to RockyGrass and everywhere in between.
- Saturday, May 13, 2023 – Time Sawyer with Shay Martin Lovette, 7:30 pm.Time Sawyer’s name reflects the pull between the past and the future. The character Tom Sawyer evokes the rural background and love of home that the band shares. Time is a muse for songwriting; it’s the thread that runs through life, bringing new experiences andgiving us a sense of urgency, while still connecting us with our past. The folk-rock band has performed on the stages of some of the Southeast’s most iconic festivals, including Merlefest, Floydfest, Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion, Albino Skunk Music Festival, and Carolina in the Fall. They’ve shared bills with American Aquarium, John Craigie, Hiss Golden Messenger, Langhorne Slim, John Moreland, Steep Canyon Rangers, The Wood Brothers, Susto, and many more. The tale of wayfaring songwriter Shay Martin Lovette, is shaped by an enduring creative pursuit, an inseparable connection with the natural world, and a deep appreciation of the nonpareil musical voices of the past. In 2021, Lovette brought forth his sophomore record Scatter & Gather, a collection of songs that signal an undeniable shift in the gravity of his writing and arranging. Written mostly from Lovette’s remote, creekside cabin among the Blue Ridge Mountains in the years following the tragic passing of his brother and musical collaborator, these songs solidify Lovette’s role as a versatile harmonica-wielding wordsmith, effortlessly drifting between the formulas of folk, indie, and homestyle roots music. – Presented by Joe Shannon’s Mountain Home Music.
- Friday, June 6, 2023 – Town Mountain with Brooks Forsyth, 7:30 pm. Hailing from Asheville, North Carolina, Town Mountain is the sum of all its vast and intricate influences — this bastion of alt-country rebellion and honky-tonk attitude pushed through the hardscrabble Southern Appalachian lens of its origin.“For us, it’s all about the interaction between the audience and the band — doing whatever we can onstage to facilitate that two-way street of energy and emotion,” says mandolinist Phil Barker. “Whether it’s a danceable groove or a particular lyric in a song, we’re projecting what we’re going through in our daily lives, and we feel that other people can attest to that, as well — it’s all about making that connection.” Hailing from the mountains of North Carolina, Brooks Forsyth is a musician of Appalachia and beyond. He began playing on street corners and barbecue restaurants and has since become a Nashville recording artist. Brooks’ musical style encompasses a variety of genres, particularly within Americana. He has a large repertoire of original songs and a versatile guitar style consisting of both flatpicking and fingerpicking techniques. Throughout the last fifteen years, he has performed solo or with a variation of musical ensembles across the U.S.A.
- Friday, June 23, 2023 – Damn Tall Buildings, 7:30 pm. “If you like your bluegrass served with a little punch, attitude, grit and gravy … Damn Tall Buildings will slide in nice as a welcome edition to your listening rotation. Bluegrass at heart, but pulling from a wide range of influences including swing, ragtime, jazz, and even a hint of contemporary perspective in the songwriting, they offer virtually unmatched energy and enthusiasm, underpinned by intelligent songs that don’t skimp on the infectiousness…” – Savingcountrymusic.com
- Saturday, August 19, 2023 – Appalachian Roadshow with special guest Bryan Sutton, 7:30pm. Appalachian Roadshow invites us to come and sit a spell on its porch as the band shares its dynamic musicianship through songs and stories emanating from the mountains and hollers of North Carolina and Virginia to the coal mines of West Virginia and Kentucky. On its eponymous debut album, the band delivers powerful songs that range from the gospel-esque “I Am Just a Pilgrim” and “Little Black Train,” to the reeling, kick-up-your-heels “Dance, Dance, Dance,” to the ballad of love and loss “Anna Lee.” “All of these songs came from the Appalachian Mountains and from the coal mining regions of Appalachia,” says Abernathy. “They confront topics such as logging, coal mining, trains, a sweetheart that took off, and so on. There’s something universal in the music and its expressed themes. There’s something for everyone. Bryan Sutton, born in Asheville, NC, is the most accomplished and awarded acoustic guitarist of his generation, an innovator who bridges the bluegrass flatpicking traditions of the 20th century with the dynamic roots music scene of the 21st. His rise from buzzed-about young sideman to first-call Nashville session musician to membership in one of history’s greatest bluegrass bands has been grounded in quiet professionalism and ever-expanding musicianship.
- Sunday, September 17, 2023 – Larry & Joe, 3:00 pm. Larry Bellorín hails from Monagas, Venezuela and is a legend of Llanera music. Joe Troop is from North Carolina and is a GRAMMY-nominated bluegrass and oldtime musician. Larry was forced into exile and is an asylum seeker in North Carolina. Joe, after a decade in South America, got stranded back in his stomping grounds in the pandemic. Larry works construction to make ends meet. Joe’s acclaimed “latingrass” band Che Apalache was forced into hiatus, and he shifted into action working with asylum seeking migrants. Currently based in the Triangle of North Carolina, both men are versatile multi-instrumentalists and singer-songwriters on a mission to show that music has no borders. As a duo they perform a fusion of Venezuelan and Appalachian folk music on harp, banjo, cuatro, fiddle, guitar, maracas and whatever else they decide to throw in the van. The program they offer features a distinct blend of their musical inheritances and traditions as well as storytelling about the ways that music and social movements coalesce.
- Thursday, September 28, 2023 – DaShawn Hickman presents Sacred Steel with the Junaluska Gospel Choir, 7:30 pm. One of the foremost contemporary practitioners of Sacred Steel, a blues-gospel tradition dating back to the Pentecostal-Holiness churches of the 1930s, DaShawn Hickman grew up hearing the pedal steel in the tiny House of God church his family attended in Mt. Airy, North Carolina, and listening to his mother play lap steel in their home. Hickman picked up the instrument at the age of 5. In his teens, he formed a group with three of his cousins that found fame as The Allen Boys, North Carolina’s only touring Sacred Steel band. Now, Hickman puts his own spin on the Sacred Steel tradition with Drums, Roots & Steel, his debut album on Little Village, produced by Charlie Hunter (who also plays bass on the recordings), and featuring the soulful vocals of Hickman’s wife Wendy on several tracks. “We just want to spread love and joy to people,” says Hickman. “That’s our mission, me and my wife both. We love what we do, and we just want to take it out and let other people experience it and be heard in the right manner.” Hickman channels the blues-gospel traditions of the Pentecostal-Holiness churches of the 1930s on his debut album, Drums, Roots & Steel, produced by guitar-phenom Charlie Hunter, Hickman draws a through-line to Southern black church music dating back to nearly a century before he put his own sound down in the studio with Drums, Roots & Steel. Hickman shines bright on Sacred Steel with Hunter on bass, as well as two West African percussionists, Atiba Rorie and Brevan Hampden, and singer Wendy Hickman. The Boone Mennonite Brethren Church Junaluksa Gospel Choir opens the show!
- Friday, October 6, 2023 -Tray Wellington Band with special guest Will Easter, 7:30pm. Tray Wellington Band – Growing up in western North Carolina’s Ashe County, Trajan “Tray” Wellington heard a lot of music — and from the first time he heard the banjo as a young teen, he was, he says, “hooked.” Even before he graduated from East Tennessee State University’s renowned Bluegrass, Old-Time and Country program, Wellington had earned acclaim as the banjo player with Cane Mill Road, performing across the country and winning a 2019 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Momentum Instrumentalist of the Year award while the group took Momentum Band of the Year honors. A well-received, independently released 2020 EP under his own name, the creation of his Tray Wellington Band and signing with Mountain Home Music Company that same year marked Wellington’s decision to make his own path going forward. Will Easter has shared the stage with acts synonymous with Folk and Bluegrass like the legendary Jim Avett, David Childers, Time Sawyer, Brooks Forsyth, The Kruger Brothers, Rhonda Vincent and Danger Muffin. In 2018 he earned his bachelor’s degree from Appalachian State University, and in 2019 he recorded and released Carolina Home. From Boone and Asheville to the Triad and Charlotte, Will has become a staple of music venues and festivals throughout the Carolinas and Virginia. With a piece of every place woven into each song, his music has something for everyone, while paying homage to his roots. The road ahead for Will is exciting. Won’t you join him on this sonic journey from coming of age to love lost and found, working hard while finding peace in the every day, always culminating in the winding road leading to his Carolina Home?
