About Brandon Johnson and Roger Howell
Join Brandon Johnson and Roger Howell for a one show only performance highlighting the tunes and musical traditions for the mountains that we call home here in Western North Carolina. You won't want to miss this!
One Show Only:
Saturday, October 26th, at 2:00pm
Brandon Johnson is a mountain musician from Asheville, NC. While a student at Mars Hill University (then College), he started his quest to learn the songs, stories, and styles of mountain music that he heard all around him. Friends and mentors in Madison, Buncombe, Caldwell, and Watauga counties shared their music with Brandon. Some of his chief mentors include Roger Howell, Bobby Hicks, and Arvil Freeman. He’s taught in the Madison County JAM program and performed with multiple bands throughout Western North Carolina. Much of his career has been devoted to studying and sharing Appalachian music and culture, and he now serves as Executive Director of the Madison County Arts Council. An award-winning mandolin player, Brandon is also proficient as a vocalist and performer on fiddle and guitar.
For almost all of his 70 years, Roger Howell has resided on Banjo Branch, on the slopes of Bailey Mountain, near Mars Hill in Madison County. It was on Banjo Branch, in early childhood, that he first grew to love the music of his native county. He later picked up his urge to play string music from several neighborhood families who played guitar, banjo and fiddle, and also from the early TV shows of Flatt & Scruggs, Porter Wagoner, and The Stoneman Family.
He has since won a great many awards, including first place in fiddle (many times) at such festivals as Fiddlers Grove, the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, and the North Carolina Mountain State Fair, and first place in banjo at the Georgia Mountain Fair. He appears on many recordings, including Blue Ridge Mountain Music, Volume I, which has been sold in gift shops along the Blue Ridge Parkway for nearly three decades, thus dispersing thousands of copies all around the world. Howell has also produced several of his own recordings, including the best-selling Hills & Heroes in 2003, and is highly sought-after in the studio, appearing on over 30 recordings over the years.
Howell’s skill in the restoration and repair of violins is well-known, and his “Bailey Mountain Fiddle Shoppe” on Banjo Branch is a popular destination for musicians from all over the country, and has even had visitors from Japan, New Zealand, and the British Isles.
In 2013, Howell finished recording his massive “Memory Collection” of fiddle tunes for Mars Hill University’s Southern Appalachian Archives, totaling over 650 tunes on 25 CDs. In 2015, the North Carolina Folklore Society honored Roger Howell with the prestigious Brown-Hudson Folklore Award for his work in preserving and celebrating regional music traditions. The documentary film A Mighty Fine Memory about Howell, produced by the Liston B. Ramsey Center for Regional Studies at Mars Hill University, was premiered at the Bascom Lamar Lunsford “Minstrel of Appalachia” Festival in October 2015.
