PineCone's 2007-2008
Down Home Series at the Progress Energy Center
for the Performing Arts

Ticket sales begin July 16 for Members Only
August 1 for General Public

Merle Haggard
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Meymandi Concert Hall
Tickets: $46-$36 members, $51-$41 public
Tickets on sale now!

Country music legend Merle Haggard is not one to rest on his laurels. At age 70, he has been hard at work in the studio in recent months, and he has a lot to show for it. In October he joined forces with George Jones on Kickin' Out the Footlights, Again. Billboard reports that Haggard will be spending 2007 promoting three new album projects. He'll be part of the Last of the Breed tour, a collaboration with Willie Nelson and Ray Price. And before the end of the year, he also plans to put out his first ever bluegrass album, Runaway Mama (McCoury Music) and a compilation for Cracker Barrel that features six of his classic hits and six new songs. For some, this may seem like a tall order, but for Merle Haggard it's all in a day's work. Merle Haggard will be performing in Raleigh with his long-term band The Strangers.
Merle Haggard's website

Bradley Walker & Alecia Nugent
Friday, October 2 6, 2007
Fletcher Opera Theater
Tickets: $23-$21 members, $25-$23 public
Two of the most powerful new voices in bluegrass music today, Bradley Walker and Alecia Nugent, join forces for a knee-buckling performance of songs from their individual Rounder label releases. Bradley Walker stuns listeners with his deep, rich baritone, heartbreaking phrasing, and the masterful sense of drama which unfolds with every note he sings. Born with Muscular Dystrophy and confined to a wheelchair, Walker's relentless pursuit to become a professional singer is an inspiration to all. In his burgeoning career, Walker has already signed with a major label, performed on the Grand Ole Opry, appeared on several national television and radio programs, and been featured in numerous national magazines.

Alecia Nugent was born into bluegrass, singing lead at an early age in her family's band in Louisiana. A natural singer and entertainer, Nugent commands audiences with her passionate delivery that is startling in both its purity and depth in soul. Together, Walker and Nugent offer a performance that winds skillfully between bluegrass, honky-tonk, and acoustic country music, introducing a new sound spun from classic cloth.
Bradley Walker website
Alecia Nugent website

The Wailin' Jennys
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Fletcher Opera Theater
Tickets: $23-$21 members, $25-$23 public
With masterfully blended three-part harmony singing and a gift for inventive arrangements of roots-pop, blues and Celtic tunes, the Canadian trio The Wailin' Jennys have catapulted to the top of the international folk music scene. They are frequent guests on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion and their album Firecracker made it to the number two spot on the Billboard Bluegrass charts in 2006. Ruth Moody (guitar, banjo, accordian, bodhran), Nicky Mehta (guitar, harmonica, ukulele, percussion), and new recruit Heather Masse combine their talents to create performances described by critics as "spine-tingling," "sublime," and "exquisite."
Wailin' Jenny's website

Native Voices: R. Carlos Nakai
& Keola Beamer
Friday, November 30, 2007
Meymandi Concert Hall
Tickets: $30-$20 members, $35-$25 public

Native Voices brings together two legendary musicians from America's indigenous peoples-Native American flutist R. Carlos Nakai and Hawaiian slack key guitar virtuoso Keola Beamer -touring together for the first time to promote their collaborative CD, Our Beloved Land, on Canyon Records. R. Carlos Nakai, the world's premier performer of the traditional cedarwood flute, journeyed to Hawai'i where he spent time fitting the haunting melodies of his flute into the soulful songs and brilliant arrangements of Keola Beamer, the world's most revered living slack key guitarist. The result is a dramatic new music that seamlessly blends traditional elements of both American Indian and Polynesian Island styles: original songs, traditional Navajo-Ute and Hawaiian chanting, and music played on slack key guitar, Native American cedarwood flute, and the Hawaiian nose flute. Supporting the duo will be John Kolivas on bass and Moanalani Beamer (Keola's wife) on whistle and several ancient Hawaiian percussive instruments. Moanalani, a master dancer, will also perform hula and other traditional Polynesian dances to the musical arrangements.
R. Carlos Nakai website
Keola Beamer website

Marty Stuart
with Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Meymandi Concert Hall
Tickets: $35-$25 members, $40-$30 public

PineCone was deeply saddened to learn that Porter Wagoner died from cancer on October 28—eleven weeks before he was scheduled to perform in Raleigh with fellow Grand Ole Opry mainstay Marty Stuart. But as Porter would have it, the show must go on. Therefore, Pinecone is pleased to announce that bluegrass legend Doyle Lawson and his band Quicksilver will now be performing alongside Marty Stuart for the January 10th concert in Raleigh.

Marty Stuart is known as country music’s renaissance man. He has scored six top-ten hits, one platinum and five gold albums, and four Grammy Awards. Keen to broaden the scope of his life-long passion to uncover the depths and eccentricities of Southern culture, Stuart has launched his own label, Superlatone, with partner Universal South Records. The kickoff release was Souls’ Chapel a Mississippi Delta-drenched, stripped down front-porch gospel record out in 2005, closely followed by Badlands (2005), and Stuart's first-ever bluegrass album, Live at the Ryman in Spring 2006. His most recent release is Compadres (June 2007), an anthology of duets with distinguished artists such as Earl Scruggs, George Jones, Mavis Staples, Loretta Lynn, and the late Johnny Cash.

Sharing Marty Stuart’s passion for Southern music, for gospel and bluegrass music in particular, is Doyle Lawson. Taking up the mandolin at the age of 11, by the time he was 19 Lawson was playing with the incomparable Jimmy Martin, launching a career that included performing with J.D. Crowe and the Country Gentlemen. In 1979 he decided that he wanted to develop his own sound, so he formed Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. Although the band has numerous recordings of the classic bluegrass repertoire, the group is best known for Lawson's stunning gospel vocal arrangements. Doyle Lawson’s latest album, More Behind the Picture Than the Wall (Rounder 2007) shows off Quicksilver’s dependable balance between sweet, in-the-tradition originals and exemplary covers that seem tailor-made for the group’s exquisite vocal interplay.
Doyle Lawson's website
Marty Stuart's website

The Del McCoury Band
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Meymandi Concert Hall
Tickets: $30-$20 members, $35-$25 public

The Del McCoury Band-a quintet fronted by the family patriarch and supported by his two sons, Ronnie McCoury on mandolin and Rob McCoury on banjo-is undeniably one of the most talented, venerated and vital groups in the modern bluegrass era. The Washington Post recently deemed Del McCoury "a national treasure", while numerous music publications have credited the band with increasing the bluegrass "hip factor," generating much of the genre's steady upswing in popularity with a more youthful crowd. The Del McCoury Band has now won more International Bluegrass Music Association awards than any other artist in the genre's history with more than 40 individual and group citations from the IBMA--including a whopping nine "Entertainer Of The Year" honors. They won a Grammy in 2006 for "Best Bluegrass Album" for their album The Company We Keep, and have recently released their very first all gospel bluegrass album, The Promised Land.
The Del McCoury' Band's website

The Taj Mahal Trio
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Meymandi Concert Hall
Tickets: $30-$20 members, $35-$25 public

A blues icon and two-time Grammy Award-winner, Taj Mahal incorporates into his distinctive blues a global perspective, reflecting and combining sounds from places he's lived and traveled. Taj Mahal has released more than 45 albums and has collaborated with a wide range of artists from Miles Davis to the Rolling Stones to Toumani Diabate to the late Etta Baker. He is currently touring as The Taj Mahal Trio, on guitar, piano and banjo with Bill Rich on bass and Kester Smith on drums. Having performed together on and off for more than thirty years, these musicians combine their blues, folk and funk expertise and a long, shared history of Mahal's music.
Taj Mahal website

Altan
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Fletcher Opera Theater
Tickets: $23-$21 members, $25-$23 public

Hailed by The Irish Times as "still the most dynamic and exciting band playing Irish music today," Altan was formed by the husband and wife team of Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh (fiddle and vocals) and the late Frankie Kennedy (flute) in the mid 1980s. The band takes pride in passing Gaelic lyrics, fiddle riffs and tin whistle tunes down to the next generation, be it their Irish neighbors or fans around the globe. In doing so, they've risen to the highest ranks of Celtic music, joining a handful of traditionalists giving ancient melodies a thoroughly modern immediacy and resonance. "They're poised for greatness and under no circumstances should they be missed in concert," wrote a reviewer for the Irish Echo in New York City.
Altan's website

Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Meymandi Concert Hall
Tickets: $45-$35 members, $50-$40 public

Backed by Skaggs' award winning band Kentucky Thunder, Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby are performing a limited number of enagements in the U.S. showcasing new compositions, bluegrass classics, and reworked hits from their personal repertoires from their CD, Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby. Although Hornsby is best known for his work in pop and jazz music, he is no stranger to bluegrass. In fact, the Virginia native won a Grammy in 1989 for Best Bluegrass Recording for "Valley Road" (from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume Two). Hornsby first collaborated with Ricky Skaggs on Big Mon: The Songs of Bill Monroe (2000). They teamed up again in early 2007 to film an episode of Country Music Television's "Crossroads" series. Sing Out! Magazine raves, "Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby is an unexpected, unlikely gem."
Ricky Skagg's website
Bruce Hornsby's website

Tony Trischka & Béla Fleck
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Meymandi Concert Hall
Tickets: $35-$25 members, $40-$30 public

Inspired by Tony Trischka's latest release on Rounder Records, titled Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular (2006), PineCone pairs Trischka with his friend and former banjo student Béla Fleck for a rare performance of twin-banjo bluegrass. While twin-fiddles are common in bluegrass, and the occasional twin mandolin sessions have emerged, double banjo projects are still a rarity. Trischka and Fleck's innate gifts as musicians and arrangers, coupled with their supreme knowledge of banjo history and technique, ensure that the performances are both provocative and tasteful. The set will include banjo duets as well as double banjo features with a stellar band-Michael Davies on guitar and vocals, Brittany Haas on fiddle and Skip Ward on bass. This is your chance to witness two of the world's top banjo players performing live in your own backyard!
Tony Trischka's website
Bela Fleck's website