Topics Related to 50 For 50

Dick Knight says there's something about Kinston.

Arvil Freeman likes to say, "I can teach you to play, but how good you’ll be depends on you."

Thomas Sayre came to North Carolina for college, but he stayed because of our state’s preternatural creative appeal. Part sculptor, part visual artist, part architect, Raleigh’s Thomas Sayre built his career from the ground up.

I first heard of Cynthia Hill in an undergraduate folklore class at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Joseph Bathanti's relationship to the North Carolina Arts Council is one for the books.

Earlier this summer Wilson, N.C. welcomed home a native son: legendary jazz drummer Billy Kaye. Born Willie King Seaberry in Wilson in 1932, Billy has performed with jazz titans like Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, Lou Donaldson, and George Benson.

Lately, Rhiannon Giddens has been telling her kids to enjoy being bored. The quiet, idle moments of her own childhood on Grand Oaks Drive in McLeansville, N.C.

Jaki Shelton Green and her poetry are both deeply rooted in the North Carolina experience. As our state’s first African American poet laureate, her words soar while keeping us close to the earth: the touch, the smell and the sound of the everyday are made holy in Green’s writing.

On Saturday, September 29th Reggie and Ryan Harris will perform at 9:45 p.m. as The Harris Brothers on the North Carolina Stage at the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Wide Open Bluegrass Festival in Raleigh, N.C.