Rory Hoffman sees the world in a different way. He loves to reimagine familiar songs with unexpected musical arrangements, such as his gypsy jazz version of the Star Wars Theme or his bossa nova treatment of the country song Oh Lonesome Me by Don Gibson. He has even done a bluegrass version of the Cole Porter standard: It's Alright With Me. A seasoned performer, Rory has been on the stage since he was three years old. "I started singing and then began playing drums in our family's band. I ended up playing drums, harmonica, and singing." The band was Roland Hoffman and the Believers, which included his father, Roland Hoffman, his older twin sisters, and his younger brother. "Mom sold merchandise in addition to making sure we had clean clothes. She was also our road manager." The family lived in rural South Dakota. "I grew up on a small ranch on the border of North Dakota and South Dakota," Rory says. "We had a North Dakota telephone number and a South Dakota address." In addition to the drums, Rory learned to play guitar early on. "I have a unique style of playing. At the age of three, I couldn't fit my hand around the neck of the guitar, so I figured out how I could make it work. I play overhand. As a child, I flopped the guitar on my lap and learned to play chords and licks. As I grew older, I kept playing that way because it worked for me. I didn't want to learn a new way of playing." Today Rory's brother works as a drummer and bass player in Austin, where he lives. Rory's sisters still play music for fun. Rory lives and works in Nashville. "Being in Nashville was a turning point for my career. I started visiting several times a year starting in 2000 and made the move in 2008." Rory always knew he would be a musician. "It's been a crazy career for me. When I was playing with our family band, I wasn't sure what I would be doing later in life, but I never imagined some of the things I have had the opportunity to do." Rory's career was slowly taking off from starting a recording and production company with a friend back in South Dakota to having a television show on the Christian Network. "There just wasn't enough opportunity for me in rural North Dakota," Rory says. Rory has a musical versatility that is awe-inspiring. He currently plays in jazz trios and a polka band with Alex Meixner. "We are in our busy season," he laughs. "I like the variety of what I do. I recently played with an old R & B singer by the name of Swamp Dawg. We did a bluegrass record of all his old R & B hits. I played banjo, guitar, and mandolin on the album. I look forward to that record coming out. It is always fun to be in the studio." Rory has also played with John Cowan (formerly with New Grass Revival). "That's what got me on the Grand Ole Opry for the first time. I also played piano and harmonica for Ricky Skaggs when he was doing a resurgence of his country stuff." Rory enjoys "statement-making" music. "I have my feet in a lot of different worlds." Rory is looking forward to performing with the Nashville Symphony soon. "You'll never believe what instrument I'll be playing." Rory plays many instruments, including guitar, saxophone, clarinet, accordion, bass, harmonica, mandolin, drums, piano, and banjo. But when he performs with the Symphony, he won't have to arrive with anything but himself and a tube of ChapStick. "I'm going to whistle," he laughs. "No kidding. They needed someone to whistle in the Symphony's performance of Into the Woods Suite by Stephen Sondheim, so they called the Nashville Musicians Association and asked for the best whistler in town. Turns out I'm one of the few professional whistlers in this area. It's just another part of the weird, cool stuff I like to do." With all that Rory does, it may be hard to realize that he is blind. "I was born with no sight, as were all my siblings," he says. His parents were both sighted and reared their children to be independent. Rory has a girlfriend who is legally blind. "I met her online during the pandemic," he says. "She moved to Nashville, and we get along well together."

Doc Watson has influenced many, but few have achieved the legacy of this inimitable traditional musician who continues to inspire. The impact of his life as an artist and demeanor as a personality will soon be celebrated through a concert series, "Doc at 100," commemorating the seven-time Grammy Award winner's birth in 1923. The concert series is co-produced by musician Jack Hinshelwood and music scholar Ted Olson and includes performers Hinshelwood, Wayne Henderson, T. Michael Coleman, and Jack Lawrence. Hinshelwood said the concert series idea came about after Olson wrote the book that accompanies last year's release of the 4-CD box set titled "Doc Watson—Life's Work: A Retrospective." Olson recently received the IBMA 2022 Industry Award for Best Liner Notes for the book. "We thought it would be a good time to put something together to celebrate Doc's legacy,"Hinshelwood said, adding they thought the presentations/performances should be "humanities rich." The result is a series of concerts that offer music, storytelling, analysis of Watson's impact, and more. "There are four of us playing the music Doc put his mark on," Hinshelwood said, adding that two of the show's performers have backgrounds playing with the legend. "T. Michael played bass,and Jack Lawrence was side-man on guitar, so obviously, they have great insights into Doc and great stories. Wayne and Doc also became pretty good friends." Hinshelwood said music history plays a big role. "Ted will be talking about Doc's legacy," he said. The first hour will be individual presentationswhere Hinshelwood and the other three artists will each play short sets "of three songs or so."Then all four will be out together onstage. "The second half of the show will be Doc's 'best loved' repertoire, which is huge," Hinshelwood said. Hinshelwood expects to add more dates, but right now, four shows are on the slate: Roanoke, VA, on November 5; Alexandria, VA, on February 26; Asheville, NC, on March 25; and Emory, VA, on May 8. Tickets and updated information about added performances are available at Docat100.com. "Doc at 100" also aims to familiarize new fans with the music and persona of Doc Watson. "He was very authentic and genuine, and that really connected people with him," Hinshelwood said. "He had opportunities he could have pursued in places like Nashville, but family and community were important to him, so he stayed in western North Carolina." Hinshelwood said the man's character is summed up succinctly by the words engraved on a Doc Watson statue in Boone, North Carolina. "Just one of the People," it reads. "It's one thing to say, 'I love this artist's music,' and it's another to say, 'I love this artist as a person.' And many people would say both about Doc," he suggested. "Any time you're a pioneer, you're gonna garner people's attention," he continued. "He was a pioneer of the flatpicking on the guitar." Hinshelwood said one plus in getting new fans onboard to appreciate the Doc Watson legacy – and something that "catches a lot of people by surprise" when they first begin delving deeply into Watson's discography – is the cross-genre breadth of his recordings. "He was firmly rooted in traditional music, in gospel and old-time string bands," Hinshelwood explained, "but he was learning show tunes and all kinds of music that his contemporaries in traditional music just weren't doing. He was like a sponge. He learned the popular music…he learned the show tunes." "Eventually," Hinshelwood continued, "he came to record things like 'Knights in White Satin'...it's pretty far from things like 'Cripple Creek' on the banjo." He sums up nicely the reasons he enjoys Doc Watson so much. "His blues is amazing, his gospel, his bluegrass…he was an Americana guitarist before Americana was cool."

While the band Midnight Hollow has only been together for one year, the history going back at least a decade helped the band members meld quickly, finding their footing in the bluegrass world. Banjo picker Joey Shann has played in different groups with bassist Chance Coppedge for ten years. Both live in Oklahoma City, but Joey resided in Kentucky for a while, where he played banjo for Dave Adkins. "That was a dream come true for me," he says. While in Kentucky, Joey married his wife, Emily, and although they both loved the time they had living in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, they were both ready to be back around family. "It was a nearly 15-hour trip to go home," he says. The couple packed up and returned to Oklahoma. Joey met Joe Kahlden, a flat-picker guitar player who also sings and writes songs. "I had known Joe for a long time," Joey says. "We always jammed together at festivals, so when I moved back, Joe and I decided to put a band together with Chance." They needed a mandolin player. Joe had played in various groups with Sam Conrey, a Memphis native with roots in blues and rock. Sam had only recently picked up the mandolin, but he was good and getting better. Next, they needed a name for the band. "We knocked around a lot of ideas," Joe recalls, "but Chance's wife, Bekka, came up with Midnight Hollow, and we all liked the sound of it." After practicing for two or three months, the band was ready to hit the road. "We play just about every weekend now." The band is new, but the musicians have ample experience under their belts. Joey was the State Banjo Champion in both Oklahoma and Kentucky in 2018. In addition to playing the banjo, the self-taught musician plays the piano and dobro. Chance is a music instructor at a music academy and musical director at a church and has played with Eric Hinson in Branson. Joe has played with his family's band, opening for Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder. Sam, also a multi-instrumentalist, made the transition from blues music to bluegrass after sitting in on a few jam sessions at a craft beer house in Oklahoma. "It has been a natural flow the whole time we have been together," says Joey. "We just have the right chemistry together, and that's a huge thing for me." After playing music full-time for ten years, Covid put a damper on Joey's career. "I went from playing forty to fifty shows in a year to only ten." He went to work for a heating, air, and refrigeration company to make ends meet. Joe has had a career in law enforcement, most recently as a detective. If he isn't working, he is teaching music or playing music somewhere. Chance also plays in a couple of country bands in addition to teaching music. And Sam has a technical job at a machine shop. "All of our jobs are good with scheduling," Joey says. "We are all able to make it work to play together most weekends." While the band plays many gigs out of state, Joey says they are growing a strong local following in Oklahoma. The audience's response to their music has been strong. "We played at Mark Gaynier's Milan Music Fest in Michigan in August and got a good response." With a foot in the traditional bluegrass world, Midnight Hollow enjoys writing their original songs with a contemporary spin. "I'd say eighty to ninety percent of what we do is original material," says Joey. "Joe is a great writer, and he writes most of our songs, although Sam has written a couple as well." The band's sound is both contemporary and traditional. "We throw in a few traditional songs people know at our shows." Midnight Hollow's single, Can't Make Things Right, was written by Joe Kahlden and released last spring. A heartfelt take on life's real moments, the lyrics are relatable, and the tune is catchy, with solid harmonies and instrumentals. To hear it, one would be hard-pressed to believe that Sam has been playing the mandolin for a short time. "We will have a full album available on all platforms in a couple of months," says Joey. "Trustin Baker filled in with fiddle work on the album, which we are excited about. Trustin is a two-time Grand Master fiddle champion." Hear Can't Make Things Right, or visit the Midnight Hollow website at www.officialmidnighthollow.com.

From a small community in Eastern North Carolina, 22-year-old Garrett Newton reflects how original bluegrass artists start. Growing up in a small Mayberry-like community where rural living is the focus, and bluegrass and country music tell the stories, it was a no-brainer when ten-year-old Garrett Newton first picked up the banjo. His grandmother gave him a banjo for his birthday that year, and he played at any chance—before and after school, teaching himself on YouTube and at local bluegrass picking sessions he found. "McGee's Crossroads epitomizes country living. Country and bluegrass music plays from the speakers in every house, and it hasn't changed much since I first started playing," Newton said. Finding himself drawn to this traditional bluegrass sound because of his hometown and upbringing, Newton dedicated time to learning the history of the music and listening to and absorbing the styles of the earliest generations of bluegrass artists. That, in turn, reflected in the way he played. This talent and drive for traditional bluegrass allowed Newton to find himself as Lorraine Jordan's protege, touring the country with her only a few years after picking up the banjo. "I saw her at a festival and asked if I could play the banjo for her," Newton said. Impressed with how Newton played, Lorraine took him under her wing and invited him to play with her on stage during her tour. "I ended up going with her on every cruise and just about every time they performed. Touring with Lorraine Jordan became a home away from home for me. I enjoyed playing a few songs with her and running the sound. It was so much fun, and I created memories that will last a lifetime." Lorraine showed him the business side of music, and "she taught me to get out there, shake hands, and talk to people. I took a lot from working with her," Newton said. Later, he realized his time with Lorraine Jordan had run its course and, with Lorraine's help, pursued his music with The Garrett Newton Band while touring with her. Like Jordan, Newton kept it traditional with his music, recording two albums and performing at festivals and concerts throughout the southeastern US during their time together. From 2020 to early 2022, Newton took a break from performing and, in turn, found a new passion for music, but this time, he focused on a traditional country sound. "In the almost 13 years since I first started playing music, I never really looked at it as a career,"Newton continued. "I just really enjoyed playing. It was always something that helped me to get away from what I was going through at the time." During his time away from performing, Newton worked on a farm instead—finding inspiration from none other than one of country music's founders, Hank Williams. After countless research on Hank Williams as a performer and musician, Newton gathered a Hank Williams tribute band and 40-45 of Hank's songs for a show unlike any other, with Newton as the lead. "We sing Hank Williams songs no one else is singing, even unreleased songs from old family records. Very few other Hank Williams tribute bands do as many songs as we do," Newton said. Newton feels like he has found his place in music with this new adventure. Even Lorraine Jordan used to say that he was a young artist with an old soul, and this music allows him to embody that. "I always wanted to capture a vintage sound, getting as close to that 1950s sound as possible," Newton said, “and the honky-tonks in rural Alabama. I like to do away with the modernness of the music and make it as raw as possible, back when country music was gold.Other than the steel guitar, I want to keep everything as raw as I can get it. I relate to this music more than any other music I've ever played," Newton said. Although he is now primarily a traditional country artist, Newton still belongs to Tomorrow's Bluegrass Stars (TBS). He meets John Colburn and TBS members at IBMA in Raleigh, North Carolina, every year. Newton appreciates how the TBS and the bluegrass family makeeveryone feel welcome. Garrett Newton has two goals moving forward with his musical career—to have fun and keep the music of Hank Williams alive. Reflecting on his journey today inspired him to offer this advice: "With music constantly changing, play the music you feel led to play. If you want to play more traditional music, play that. You can only play what's really in your heart and what you have a drive for."