AcousticMusicScene.com

Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson are among the inaugural class of inductees in the new Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame in Wilkesboro, North Carolina.  The two nationally known artists from the greater Blue Ridge Mountains region, which extends from north Georgia to northwestern Virginia, were honored during ceremonies June 13 at the Walker Center on the campus of Wilkes Community College (home to Merlefest).   

The Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame was created in 2006 as a project of the Wilkes Heritage Museum and the nonprofit Old Wilkes, Inc. Through exhibits, interactive displays and an annual celebration of inductees, the Hall of Fame seeks to educate visitors, while defining and interpreting the rich musical heritage and traditions of the Blue Ridge Mountains area and musicians in all genres from the region who have contributed to it. 

Scruggs, who popularized a three-finger banjo picking style that has become a defining characteristic of bluegrass music, and Watson, who virtually invented the art of playing mountain fiddle tunes on flat-top guitar, both hail from North Carolina.

Also selected for membership in the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame this year were the Carter Family (pioneering artists who were one of the most influential groups in mountain music and whose songs have become part of the standard country music repertoire), Tommy Jarrell (an influential banjo player and fiddler), Dolly Parton (acclaimed country music singer and songwriter), David Johnson (a studio musician and performer from Wilkes County), Ralph Rinzler (the late folklorist, festival administrator, writer and advocate for grassroots music for whom the Smithsonian named its Folkway Collection), Ralph Epperson (the founder of radio station WPAQ in Mount Airy, North Carolina), Wayne Henderson (a noted luthier) and Sam Love Queen, Sr. (the “Square Dance King” of North Carolina). 

Housed in the Wilkes Heritage Museum (the restored 1902 Wilkes Courthouse) on East Main Street in downtown Wilkesboro, the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame lies within the federally designated Blue Ridge National Heritage area and is located near the halfway point on the Blue Ridge Parkway. 

More information on the Hall of Fame and this year’s inductees can be found online at www.blueridgemusichalloffame.com.

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