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Durham Musician Nancy Middleton Shares Her ‘Raving Roller’ Spirit

Durham native Nancy Middleton spent 11 years in Nashville before coming back home to the Triangle music scene in 2007.
Durham native Nancy Middleton spent 11 years in Nashville before coming back home to the Triangle music scene in 2007.
Durham native Nancy Middleton spent 11 years in Nashville before coming back home to the Triangle music scene in 2007.
Credit Courtesy of Nancy Middleton
Durham native Nancy Middleton spent 11 years in Nashville before coming back home to the Triangle music scene in 2007.

Durham called folk rocker Nancy Middleton back home after 11 years in Nashville. Host Anita Rao talks to folk rocker Nancy Middleton, who also performs live in the studio.

She was born and raised in the Bull City, the punctuation mark at the end of a line of four older siblings. Her music career began in the Triangle and met great success. With her Americana blues-y sound that attracted crowds of all kinds, Musician magazine named her one of the best unsigned bands in the 90s. That led to a write-up in Billboard Magazine, which gave her the confidence to move to Nashville. She played legendary venues like The Bluebird Cafe, singing nearly all original songs. Middleton met her husband in Nashville, and they moved back to Durham in 2007 to raise their two kids.

Now, she balances her career as a beloved local musician with being a teacher’s assistant in a first grade classroom and volunteering with Kidznotes, an organization dedicated to teaching music to children. Host Anita Rao talks with Middleton about the evolution of her music career, and she performs some songs from the years in the studio. Middleton recently formed a trio The Goodloves with local artists Glenn Jones and Emma Davis. The Goodloves will perform in the 10th Annual Newtonanny Christmas Show at the Blue Note Grill in Durham on Dec. 22 and again at the Blue Note Grill on Jan. 3 at 9 p.m.

 

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Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.
Josie Taris left her home in Fayetteville in 2014 to study journalism at Northwestern University. There, she took a class called Journalism of Empathy and found her passion in audio storytelling. She hopes every story she produces challenges the audience's preconceptions of the world. After spending the summer of 2018 working in communications for a Chicago nonprofit, she decided to come home to work for the station she grew up listening to. When she's not working, Josie is likely rooting for the Chicago Cubs or petting every dog she passes on the street.