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. 

The “An Appalachian Evening” series will continue with a performance by Balsam Range at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 31, in Lynn L. Shields Auditorium at the Stecoah Valley Center in Robbinsville. 

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

Rising singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Alma Russ will hit the stage at 9 p.m. Saturday, June 22, at The Gem downstairs taproom at Boojum Brewing in Waynesville. 

Barry Bales has 15 Grammy Awards and 23 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) honors, including four IBMA “Bass Player of the Year” trophies. But, today, Bales is trying to get all of his farm chores done before an afternoon rainstorm rolls in. 

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

Editor’s Note: Since first rolling into Haywood County in August 2012 to start work as the arts and entertainment editor for The Smoky Mountain News, Garret K. Woodward has been extensively documenting banjo players around our backyard.

In the mid-1960s, when Bill Allsbrook was a med school student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, he decided to pick up the banjo. 

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

Late last month, I was lucky enough to catch a special musical performance in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.