A new concert series honoring the impact of the city of Asheville on Americana and Appalachian music is coming this fall.
"The Asheville Sessions: Celebrating 100 years of Americana & Appalachia,” is a weekend-long series of concerts and discussions.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Vic Isley, president and CEO of Explore Asheville, explained it is a way to honor the work of artists of the past and link it to the city’s thriving music scene today.
“ We are here to honor our history, celebrate our present, and invite the world to experience Asheville through music this fall.”
In 1925, Okeh Record Company talent scout Ralph Peer and a group of engineers gathered on the top floor of the George Vanderbilt Hotel in downtown Asheville for a two-week recording session.
The New York-based company drew musicians from across the Southern Appalachian region who brought their fiddles and banjos and sang traditional songs that were passed down through generations.
Known as the “Asheville Sessions,” 60 recordings captured the very first performances of traditional music recorded in the region for distribution to a broader American audience, according to the North Carolina Arts Foundation.
”While many might view the Asheville Sessions tracks as strictly kind of old-time music, they were more diverse,” Richard Emmett, program director at Blue Ridge Music Center, said at a press conference Tuesday.
Along with the celebration, a remastered, 28-track collection of the album will be released on Aug. 25.
For information on the weekend-long event, as well as ticket prices, click here.
