Craig Shelburne Archives - The Bluegrass Situation

On the heels of being awarded IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award, the BGS team is excited to announce a few staff changes in our organization that took effect earlier this summer. Our incredible Managing Editor of 4+ years, Craig Shelburne, was recently offered an opportunity for a once-in-a-lifetime project – more details to come – and consequently has had to end his time with BGS. While we miss him dearly, with his unending dedication to and love of roots music, his singular journalistic perspective, and his legendary puns lighting up our lives, we are so thrilled for him in this next chapter of his career and the entire team wishes him the best.

With Shelburne’s departure, we are absolutely delighted to have longtime BGS team member Justin Hiltner back in the fold, now acting as our Managing Editor. Justin Hiltner is a queer and disabled banjo player, songwriter, and music writer known from Peabody Award-winning podcast Dolly Parton’s America. He recently completed a national tour of Broadway’s Tony Award-winning revival of Oklahoma! and played banjo and guitar for a limited run of the musical Bright Star at the Miracle Theatre in Miami. His debut solo album, 1992, was released in December 2022 and was a Best of 2022 selection by NPR Music, Slate, and more. (We covered the project here.) Hiltner has been nominated for Momentum Instrumentalist of the Year, Momentum Industry Involvement, Writer of the Year, and Collaborative Recording of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA). In 2016 he co-founded Shout & Shine, a showcase, column, and video series celebrating representation and inclusion in bluegrass with BGS before going on to become our social media director and, later, Digital Brand Director. He also helped found – and currently sits on the board – for Bluegrass Pride, a non-profit with a mission of uplifting LGBTQ+ folks in roots music, and recently he served on Folk Alliance International’s Cultural Equity Council.

Lonnie Lee Hood, BGS Social Media Editor

In addition, we’ve also had the joy of recently adding Lonnie Lee Hood to our team as our Social Media Editor. Lonnie is a journalist and writer located in Middle Tennessee. They are currently working on their debut book, Redneck Revolution, with the West Virginia University Press. They live with their potbelly pig and look forward to building a small, sustainable homestead in the mountains.

Former BGS media director and executive assistant Shelby Williamson has also moved into a new position within our staff, stepping into the newly created Creative Director role. Williamson has overseen many aspects of BGS’ outward facing brand over the past handful of years, from our Instagram channel and email newsletter to the ever-expanding BGS Podcast Network, leading production and development of shows such as Harmonics with Beth Behrs and Carolina Calling. As Creative Director, Williamson will oversee a visual branding refresh coming to BGS soon and will also co-edit a new country-geared vertical within the BGS brand with Hiltner, to be announced soon.

Rounding out the BGS staff are co-founder and executive director Amy Reitnouer Jacobs and web and audience development expert Joe Klingl, in addition to our BGS family of contributors, writers, and creatives. Our team is already enjoying this latest evolution of BGS and we’re excited to continue connecting with our community in this new chapter.

The image of bluegrass is mountain music played and heard at high altitudes and towns like Deep Gap and remote mountain hollers across the Appalachians. But the earliest form of the music originated at lower elevations, in textile towns across the North Carolina Piedmont. As far back as the 1920s, old-time string bands like Charlie Poole’s North Carolina Ramblers were playing an early form of the music in textile towns, like Gastonia, Spray, and Shelby – in Cleveland County west of Charlotte.

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In this second episode of Carolina Calling, a podcast exploring the history of North Carolina through its music and the musicians who made it, we visit the small town of Shelby: a seemingly quiet place, like most small Southern towns one might pass by in their travels. Until you see the signs for the likes of the Don Gibson Theatre and the Earl Scruggs Center, you wouldn’t guess that it was the town that raised two of the most influential musicians and songwriters in bluegrass and country music: Earl Scruggs, one of the most important musicians in the birth of bluegrass, whose banjo playing was so innovative that it still bears his name, “Scruggs style,” and Don Gibson, one of the greatest songwriters in the pop & country pantheon, who wrote “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” “Sweet Dreams,” and other songs you know by heart. For both Don Gibson and Earl Scruggs, Shelby is where it all began.

Subscribe to Carolina Calling on any and all podcast platforms to follow along as we journey across the Old North State, visiting towns like Greensboro, Durham, Wilmington, Asheville, and more.

Music featured in this episode:

Charlie Poole & The North Carolina Ramblers – “Take a Drink On Me”
Flatt & Scruggs – “Ground Speed”
Don Gibson – “I Can’t Stop Loving You”
Andrew Marlin – “Erie Fiddler” (Carolina Calling Theme)
Hedy West – “Cotton Mill Girl”
Blind Boy Fuller – “Rag Mama, Rag”
Don Gibson – “Sea Of Heartbreak”
Patsy Cline – “Sweet Dreams ”
Ray Charles – “I Can’t Stop Loving You”
Ronnie Milsap – “(I’d Be) A Legend In My Time”
Elvis Presley – “Crying In The Chapel”
Hank Snow – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Don Gibson – “Sweet Dreams”
Don Gibson – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Chet Atkins – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Johnny Cash – “Oh, Lonesome Me”
The Everly Brothers – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Neil Young – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Flatt & Scruggs – “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”
Bill Preston – “Holy, Holy, Holy”
Flat & Scruggs – “We’ll Meet Again Sweetheart”
Snuffy Jenkins – “Careless Love”
Bill Monroe – “Uncle Pen”
Bill Monroe – “It’s Mighty Dark To Travel”
The Earl Scruggs Revue – “I Shall Be Released”
The Band – “I Shall Be Released”
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”
The Country Gentlemen – “Fox On The Run”
Sonny Terry – “Whoopin’ The Blues”
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee – “Born With The Blues (Live)”
Nina Simone – “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free”

BGS is proud to produce Carolina Calling in partnership with Come Hear NC, a campaign from the North Carolina Department of Natural & Cultural Resources designed to celebrate North Carolinians’ contribution to the canon of American music.

Tag: Craig Shelburne

Carolina Calling, Shelby: Local Legends Breathe New Life Into Small Town