“Plans for Raleigh Wide Open are ongoing,” says PineCone executive director David Brower. “We’re super enthusiastic, working every day to make it the best we can. In the meantime, I’m proud of this season. It broadly touches on all the spaces PineCone likes to work, from straight-ahead bluegrass to singer-songwriters.”
NOTE: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL JAN. 17 DUE TO WEATHER
The season kicks off with Tennessee’s Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, a bluegrass band with the sort of origin story that seems more mythic than factual. But it’s true: The group formed more than a decade ago as house band at Ole Smoky Moonshine Distillery in Gatlinburg. They’ve since gone on to an excellent career, highlighted by a Grammy nomination.
“Po’ Ramblin’ Boys are better songsters than just about anyone else,” says Brower. “Their songs really resonate, and they fire on all cylinders. They played the tribute show to Bobby Osborne at IBMA the year before last and it was absolutely phenomenal.”
Arkansas native Iris DeMent remains one of the most unique singers in the Americana field, with an emotional voice that speaks right to the heart. She’s coming to Raleigh on a bill with singer/songwriter Ana Egge as opening act.
“I can’t even remember the last time Iris DeMent played in this area,” Brower says. “So I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how well her name still resonates. She’s been doing a lot of stirring protest songs, there’s a great video of a song she wrote for the women’s march eight years ago. She’s got such a rich, distinctive voice, and her songs crush.”
Fitting for a bluegrass band whose name doubles as a Rolling Stones album title, Virginia’s Steel Wheels are a rollicking outfit with plenty of get up and go. Between IBMA and PineCone, they’ve been regulars around these parts for years. Their Down Home show is one of five to feature special-guest openers from Western North Carolina—part of PineCone’s relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
“We’re looking for ways to help Western North Carolina,” says Brower. “So we’re hiring as many traditional artists as we can from the 26 affected counties out there. It’s a way to give these musicians some work, and keep the story of the long recovery that will be required in mind.”
Few bands can claim to have done more to popularize Cajun zydeco music beyond the style’s Louisiana base than BeauSoleil, led by the redoubtable Michael Doucet. The group marks a half-century of existence in 2025—a monumental achievement for any band, especially one that plays a less-commercial style of vernacular music.
“BeauSoleil will be a real treat,” says Brower. “It’s their 50-year anniversary, so both David and Michael Doucet will be here. And if you’re gonna see just one Cajun band working that sound, well, BeauSoleil would be the band.”
From Colorado, Grammy-winning singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Tim O’Brien has had an illustrious career both in and out of Hot Rize (which has been around almost as long as BeauSoleil). This show finds him coming to Raleigh with Jan Fabricius, his wife as well as performing partner.
“Tim O’Brien might be one of my all-time favorite bluegrass songwriters,” says Brower. “The stuff he did during his Sugar Hill Records days really resonates, especially the two albums he did with his sister Mollie O’Brien. He and Jan sound a lot like that now, a duo where you can really hear the song.”
A co-founder of Old Crow Medicine Show, Willie Watson is fast becoming a solo star on par with his old band. After two collections of traditional folk-song covers, he ventured into writing his own songs on his eponymous 2024 album, one of the year’s best. His Down Home show will be one of Watson’s few headline dates in 2025, as he’ll spend most of the year opening for Alison Krauss and Union Station (including April 27 at Cary’s Koka Booth Amphitheatre).
“I’m pleased his team prioritized our show after he was added to the Alison Krauss tour for all 75 dates,” says Brower. “That put a kink in his schedule, but he bent over backward to preserve our date. I find him just mind-blowingly ethereal in a wacky, beautiful way.”
A genuine cultural polyglot, Scythian hails from Washington, D.C., and brings together a veritable Embassy Row’s worth of musical and cultural threads. Brower calls their onstage vibe “a Celtic Ukranian arena-rock show.”
“They’re a great festival band and they really bring it to outdoor venues like MerleFest,” says Brower. “It will be nice to see them in a seated venue, where they can do some quieter things in addition to the barn burners everybody loves. The brothers in the band are of Ukranian descent, and they’ve really leaned into that part of their musical heritage since the war started.”
There was a great deal of attention paid to 2024’s 100-year anniversary of the birth of bluegrass banjo titan Earl Scruggs. And that got Della Mae fiddler Kimber Ludiker thinking that there needed to be a similar celebration for the century mark of the late folk pioneer Hazel Dickens. This show pays tribute with her Hazel & Alice bandmate Alice Gerrard (whose 90th birthday was the subject of a PineCone tribute show in 2024) and singer/songwriter Laurie Lewis.
“Hazel Dickens was a breakthrough artist on so many levels, shattering the glass ceilings of stringband music,” says Brower. “The show will be a mix of Della Mae and Hazel & Alice songs. And they’ll do whatever Laurie Lewis tells them to do, which is what one does.”
A biennial highlight, the North Carolina Heritage Awards pay tribute to venerable artists who have had a lifetime of creativity. This year’s winners are Winston-Salem musician Gaurang Doshi, Brasstown woodcarver Helen Gibson, Farmville gospel group Glorifying Vines Sisters, Mount Airy guitarist Chester McMillan and Lumbee artisans Herman and the late Loretta Oxendine.
“We’ve changed this one to matinee time [2:30pm] and it will be a beautiful afternoon,” says Brower. “The North Carolina Heritage Awards are the state’s highest award for purveyors of folk arts and traditions, something they present every two years.”
PineCone puts on a number of other events throughout the year, too—workshops, jam sessions and more. Keep up with what's happening at pinecone.org.
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Author: David Menconi
2019 Piedmont Laureate David Menconi was music critic at The News & Observer in Raleigh for 28 years and has also written for publications including Billboard, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, SPIN, The Bluegrass Situation and No Depression. His fifth book, "Oh, Didn’t They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music," was published in October 2023 by University of North Carolina Press.
