A community jam will be held from 6-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17, at the Marianna Black Library in Bryson City.

Anyone with a guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, dulcimer or anything unplugged is invited to join. Singers are also welcomed to join in or you can just stop by and listen. The jam is facilitated by Larry Barnett of the Sawmill Creek Porch Band. 

The sheer beauty and fundamental foundation of bluegrass music resides in one simple truth about the tones, textures and talents within the “high, lonesome sound” — its timelessness. 

A community jam will be held from 6-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 5, at the Marianna Black Library in Bryson City. 

Straddling the line between neo-traditional and progressive bluegrass, Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road are a fiercely ambitious and purposely elusive melodic force to be reckoned with in the live music scene of Western North Carolina and beyond. 

When it comes to bluegrass banjo, you’d be hard-pressed to find as vivacious and voracious a picker-n-grinner than Kyle Tuttle. 

A community jam will be held from 6-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 5, at the Marianna Black Library in Bryson City. 

A community jam will be held from 6-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 7, at the Marianna Black Library in Bryson City.

In the pantheon of legendary jam-grass acts, a handful of pioneering bands broke new ground in the 1980s and 1990s by creating a sonic landscape that was a harmonious blend of bluegrass, folk, jazz and acoustic rock sensibilities — this emerging scene focused on rollicking live shows and keen improvisational aspects. 

With the current pandemic and economic shutdown, the music industry was the first business sector to close its doors and will most likely be the last to reopen when all is said and done.