Jason Aldean is going to duet alongside a hologram of Kelly Clarkson when he sings their Grammy-winning ballad “Don’t You Wanna Stay” at this Saturday’s performance at the Greensboro Coliseum. Oh, spoiler alert? It shouldn’t be necessary. Aldean is infamous for coattailing on famous ghosts.

Country music, the first and realest kind, is a nonrenewable resource. It’s like the helium in the atmosphere — we might take it for granted now, but we’re really, really going to miss it when it’s gone.

Lyrically, the left-field Detroit rapper is raunchier than 2 Live Crew ever even knew how to be, but the guy who penned songs like “Head for Free” and “Radio Head” isn’t all bluster. Fans at his Minneapolis show last Friday got their money’s worth when one lady admirer jumped on stage and proceeded to do the unthinkable mid-song.

If my cover story last week (“The circle will be unbroken”) was any indication that, in the wake of the passing of a man who was not only a patriarch to MerleFest, but to the entirety of the bluegrass and folk world, MerleFest will be just fine, though it certainly won’t be the same.

There’s no surer sign that warm weather has arrived in the Piedmont than Tax Day, but after Tax Day the surest sign is the opening day of the spring Shakori Hill Grassroots Festival, starting this Thursday and running through Sunday.

The history of tour rider requests includes the extravagant (Jay- Z’s personal cigar roller on his current tour with Justin Timberlake), the curious (the Bloodhound Gang’s need for a fridge magnet of local interest), and the grotesque (Gorgoroth’s...

There are those bands that can go from a Craigslist ad to playing the Grammys on little more than the strength of a single song and their potential, then there are others who announce themselves with a solid record, tour relentlessly, exhibit...

Twenty-five of the world’s most important fashion tastemakers are sitting around an agarwood conference table with burnished copper inlay in an underground Swiss bunker. An image pops up on a hologram projection pod in its center. It’s Macklemore; most of the onlookers gasp as the man seated at the head of the room says, “Gentlemen, we have a problem.

Pop quiz: Before sax doyen Jeff Coffin joined jazz-folk powerhouse Bela Fleck & the Flecktones, and again after he departed them for the largesse of the Dave Matthews Band, who played Fleck’s melodic foil? The answer: multi-instrumentalist and...

To ordain the Rebirth Brass Band a New Orleans institution on the cusp of their 30th anniversary would be understating just what passes for a cultural institution in New Orleans.

Your move, R. Kelly voucher holders. This Saturday night’s Parliament Funkadelic show is the first, last and best reason to redeem your pain and suffering. The saying, “Ain’t no party like a P-Funk party” isn’t just a marketing slogan; it’s a cosmic fact.

Johnny Cash would’ve been 81 years old this Tuesday, and to put that in perspective, the current eldest statesman of country music, Little Jimmy Dickens, is 91 and still an important part of the Grand Ol’ Opry.

The leap that Winston-Salem indie-rock soiree Phuzz Phest (happening April 4-6) has made in its third year is witness, first and foremost, to a genuine admiration for the little guy.

The New Grass Revival were more than just a group of bluegrass pickers that broke all the rules; they were a band that piqued tastes undiscovered in the most stubborn of string purists and reticent outsiders.

Plainly put, Yonder Mountain String Band is on fire these days. For every time it has looked like their jam-scene popularity is starting to wane, i.e. every time another hot string band gains traction, they come back harder, tour harder and do things fans never thought they’d do.

Sometimes it feels like you can’t walk from the Green Bean to Center City Park without tripping over a Laurelyn Dossett performance.

For an artist who has shown enormous promise since he was first discovered at a New York City open-mic night nearly 20 years ago while rooming with Beck on the Lower East Side, Paleface seems to be interminably on the come-up.

The year is 1988. The day is any given Saturday afternoon at Aladdin’s Castle. You plunk a few quarters into the Contra machine and before you’ve even reached the Waterfall Base, a looky-loo of questionable employ is hovering over your shoulder, silently and mindlessly watching you spray unlimited ammo at 8-bit aliens.

Jamey Johnson’s Greensboro Coliseum performance in 2011 was likely an introduction to the burlap-voiced songwriter for someone who was there on the notion that he’s the savior of country music, and it was extremely likely they came away disappointed.

So long as his shows continue to be under-attended (i.e. not sold out), Malcolm Holcombe will continue to appear in this space. But then, the Swannanoa native’s story is somewhat typical thus far of the tortured songwriter: Toil brilliantly but remain overlooked, fade into obscurity and ultimately become forgotten, before a glorious revival.