With a slew of chart-topping bluegrass hits, including the No. 1 “Dark Side of the Mountain,” Cherryville-based string quintet Unspoken Tradition represents the latest chapter of the “high, lonesome sound” in Western North Carolina and greater Southern Appalachia.

The key element of bluegrass music is the “unspoken” — in practice, in performance and in personality. 

Whether you’re 8 years old or 80, the foundation of bluegrass lies in its traditions, where knowledge and technique is passed down through the generations. That transition of wisdom is found while strumming in a field at a festival with strangers, chugging along onstage in the heat of a jam with your friends, or pickin’ and grinnin’ on a back porch with family members.