Tag: drum

SolStar performs “Reaching Forward” at Bele Chere 2012

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SolStar perform at Bele Chere 2012.
What can you say about Atlanta’s genre-crossing band SolStar? How many bands can you think of that feature an electric violin and African dancing as key elements to the performance? Having only encountered the band by accident before, and having only a cellphone camera to capture the performance, it was a great turn of luck to run into them again.

Here, the five-piece version of the group performs to a packed crowd in front of the Woolworth Walk in Asheville, NC, during the 2012 Bele Chere street festival. Continue reading SolStar performs “Reaching Forward” at Bele Chere 2012

Kevin Jerome performs “To the Mountain Top”

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Kevin Jerome sings about the Mountain Top.
To point out an awkward truth about Asheville’s music scene, there simply aren’t that many black performers on the city’s cultural radar. It’s a town where even the best-known rap and hip-hop acts are mostly composed of white men, and where the most known black busker is an elderly sax player who often doesn’t even bother playing through the first chorus of the song. But there are exceptions. Leeda “Lyric” Jones, for instance, and Kevin Jerome. Continue reading Kevin Jerome performs “To the Mountain Top”

Kevin Jerome reclaims “I’ll Fly Away”

Kevin Jerome did far more than reclaim “I’ll Fly Away,” he reinvented it.
When Kevin Jerome told me that he wanted to “reclaim” the 1929 Albert E. Brumley hymn “I’ll Fly Away” for “the black man,” I was dubious. Jerome is an unquestionably talented performer, but was he really up to the task of reworking one of the most recognized gospel songs of all time? In a word, yes. Continue reading Kevin Jerome reclaims “I’ll Fly Away”