Our performers for the Charlie Poole Festival feature iconic figures in American music alongside bright new stars - all in honor of the original - Charlie Poole.
Friday, June 13, 2025
4:00 pm - 9:00 pm* (Gates open at 3:00 pm)
6 pm: New North Carolina Ramblers7 pm: Thomm Jutz8 pm: Presentation of Charlie Poole Festival Lifetime Achievement Award to Wayne Henderson and Helen White and performance by Wayne Henderson9 pm: Lonesome River Band
Saturday, June 14, 2025
1:00 pm - 10:00 pm*
2:00 pm: Jesse Smathers3:00 pm: Payday at the Mill4:00 pm: Tray Wellington Band5:00 pm: Amythyst Kiah6:00 pm: Lonesome River Band7:15 pm: Presentation of Tony Rice Music Scholarship7:30 pm: John McEuen & the Circle Band8:45 pm: Presentation of the Charlie Poole Festival Lifetime Achievement Award to Sammy Shelor and Riley Baugus9:00 pm: Africa to Appalachia with Riley Baugus and Cheick Hamala Diabate
Africa to Appalachia with Riley Baugus and Cheick Hamala Diabate
Africa to Appalachia is a musical project that explores the historical connection between West African and Southern Appalachian music. This diverse and talented group features two special friends of the festival – Riley Baugus, one of this year’s recipients of our Lifetime Achievement Award, and 2016 recipient, Cheick Hamala Diabate. Diabate, a renowned Malian n’goni master and griot, and accomplished old-time banjo player, Riley Baugus, are joined on this project by versatile multi-instrumentalist Danny Knicely. The inclusion of African Djembe by Dr. Yuma and bass guitar by Rob Colton rounds out the band’s sound.
Amythyst Kiah
A native of Chatanooga, TN, Amythyst Kiah is a graduate of East Tennessee State University’s Bluegrass, Old Time, and Country Music Studies program. Her breakthrough album, “Wary + Strange” was lauded by Rolling Stone as one of the 25 best Country and Americana albums of 2021. Amythyst’s most current recording – “Still + Bright” – is a darkly cinematic twist on her previous work, exploring her affinity for Eastern philosophies and spiritual traditions, a deep connection to the natural world, and life lessons learned in her formative years as a self-described “anime-nerd mall goth.” Amythyst’s career has seen collaborations with an eclectic mix of the brightest stars in Americana music today, including performing with the women-of-color supergroup, Our Native Daughters, which also includes Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell.
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John McEuen and The Circle Band
John McEuen, a founding member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, has won numerous awards throughout his career, both with the band and as a solo artist, including the 2013 Charlie Poole Festival Lifetime Achievement Award. John initiated the 1971 landmark “Will the Circle be Unbroken” album, hooking the NGDB up with pioneering artists such as Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Merle Travis, Mother Maybelle Carter, Jimmy Martin, Roy Acuff, Vassar Clements, and others, for what has been deemed one of the most important records to come out of Nashville. His autobiography “The Life I’ve Picked” relates many of the fascinating stories of his life – his storytelling is almost as legendary as his music making.
The Lonesome River Band
Sammy Shelor, leader of one of the most respected bands in bluegrass music, is five-time winner of the IBMA Banjo Player of the Year, recipient of the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, and will receive one of this year’s Charlie Poole Festival Lifetime Achievement Awards. Sammy learned to play banjo from his grandfather, who learned to play from none other than Charlie Poole. Guitarist and one of the lead singers of the group, Jesse Smathers, is a Rockingham County native and grew up coming to this event. Fellow lead singer, on mandolin, Adam Miller, rounds out the band, along with Mike Hartgrove (fiddle) and Kameron Keller (bass), producing the seamless bluegrass sound that their fans around the country embrace.
The New North Carolina Ramblers
The New North Carolina Ramblers plays old-time string band music in the tradition of Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers. Kinney Rorrer (banjo and vocals) is the great nephew of Poole’s wife and her brother, Poole’s fiddle player, Posey Rorer. Kinney is the author of Poole’s biography “Ramblin’ Blues: The Life and Songs of Charlie Poole,” and was the recipient of the 2011 Charlie Poole Festival Lifetime Achievement Award. Joining him in the band are Wayne Martin (fiddle), Margaret Martin (guitar and autoharp), and Darren Moore (guitar and autoharp). The band, in various forms, has performed at events including the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, MerleFest, the National Folk Festival, and the Ferrum Folklife Festival.
Thomm Jutz
Raised in the Black Forest of Germany, Thomm Jutz has become an American roots music treasure. He was a young, classically trained musician in Germany when he heard Outlaw legend, Bobby Bare, sing on a television show and decided to devote his life to Americana music. He saved money, won the immigration lottery, and moved to Nashville, where he went to work with some of the long-standing names in country and bluegrass. His 2020 album, “To Live in Two Worlds, Volume 1,” was nominated for the Best Bluegrass Album Grammy, making him the first immigrant to receive a nomination in that category. He won the 2021 International Bluegrass Music Association’s Songwriter of the Year award, and is a current lecturer of songwriting at Belmont University. His songs, including numerous #1 Bluegrass hits, have been recorded by John Prine, Nanci Griffith, and Balsam Range, among others. Jutz was featured in the Country Music Hall of Fame “American Currents” exhibit.
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Tray Wellington Band
Banjo player Tray Wellington’s approach to the banjo, the quintessential American instrument, is all about looking forward. He is an IBMA award winner, and recipient of the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, but his playing and approach to the music does not fit neatly into the “bluegrass box.” When this band takes the stage, Tray synthesizes countless styles and inputs to craft an approach to the banjo where reinvention and innovation aren’t abstract concepts, but active, real time processes. He demonstrates that this instrument transcends styles, techniques, and genres, and, with his band, leaves the audience excited about all things new.
Wayne Henderson
Wayne Henderson’s top-notch finger-picking style on guitar is a source of great pride to his friends and neighbors in Grayson County, Virginia. He is equally renowned as a master luthier, and was a 1995 recipient of a National Heritage Award by the National Endowment for the Arts. Many accomplished musicians, including Eric Clapton, have added their names to the waiting list for a Henderson guitar. He has appeared at Carnegie Hall, in three national tours of Masters of the Steel-String Guitar, and toured extensively, as far away as Asia. In 2024, the Charlie Poole Festival named Wayne Henderson, and his life partner, the late Helen White, as recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award, chiefly for their creation and support of the transformative J.A.M. (Junior Appalachian Musicians) program that provides instrument instruction to young people in the Appalachian region. Their work with this program inspired Piedmont Folk Legacies, organizer of the Charlie Poole Festival, to create the corresponding P.I.C.K. (Piedmont Instrument Classes for Kids) program.
Jesse Smathers
Jesse Smathers was born and raised in Eden, NC, but holds his Western NC roots close. Jesse comes from a long line of musicians. His grandfather, Harold Smathers, and grand-uncle, Luke Smathers, recorded for June Appal and were awarded the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award in 1993 for their contributions to North Carolina folk music. Jesse began playing the guitar at age eleven, and added the mandolin not long after. His teens were spent competing at fiddlers conventions, including his home festival, the Charlie Poole Festival. In 2010, he began his career as a touring musician with the James King Band, and in 2014 he joined the Nothin’ Fancy band. The Lonesome River Band welcomed him to the group in 2015 as their mandolin player, with Jesse earning the IBMA Momentum Award for Vocalist of the Year in 2017. In 2021, Jesse switched over to the guitar position with Lonesome River Band, and continues to tour with them around the country. In 2022 Jesse released his first self-titled solo album, and now has another solo album out this year after signing with Mountain Home Music Company.
"Payday at the Mill" w/ Laurelyn Dossett, DaShawn & Wendy Hickman, & More
This special collaborative concert will use song, poetry and narrative to weave a vibrant tapestry that reflects North Carolina's legacy of mill life. From the fields to the factories, workers black and white, songs old and new, this concert will be deeply meaningful and uplifting, celebrating the spirit of our mill workers.
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Stay tuned for more to be added!