The Northwest Piedmont of North Carolina has a distinguished music heritage carried forth by talented musicians from the 1700s until today. Today, musicians in the area perform a variety of music styles that have been passed down from generation to generation. The Winston-Salem area is a mecca for old-time string band and bluegrass music. Added to this are a rich gospel tradition, Piedmont blues, jazz and Moravian music-traditions that continue to be an authentic and important part of community life. Carolina Music Ways works to preserve the area’s rich music heritage and to share where these music traditions are performed throughout the area year-round.

In the early south, old-time string band music, both African and European American, formed a basis for styles that would later emerge including acoustic blues, bluegrass and commercial country music. Early on, a music culture developed around Winston-Salem's tobacco warehouses, when farmers stayed for days at harvest time. A local Piedmont blues tradition emerged, and gospel music, both black and white, became increasingly important throughout the region.

In the 20th century, gospel legend Shirley Caesar got an early start at her uncle's church in Winston-Salem. Jazz emerged as another musical force in the area. John Coltrane spent his teenage years in High Point and Thelonious Monk, hailing from Rocky Mount, was at one time a fixture of the Greensboro music scene.

In the Northwest Piedmont's early days of radio, stations such as WSJS, WAAA and WAIR in Winston-Salem, and WBIG in Greensboro, offered live music by artists including Bill and Charlie Monroe, the Bogtrotters, Mainer's Mountaineers and numerous gospel groups.

After World War II, WPAQ in Mount Airy began daily live broadcasts. The station launched the nation's third- longest-running live music radio show, the "Merry Go Round," which continues today at a theater in downtown Mount Airy.

During the 1960s and 1970s, a nationwide revival of interest in old-time and bluegrass music focused on the Round Peak area of neighboring Surry County. A number of outstanding mountain fiddlers, banjo players and bands became world famous, including Tommy Jarrell, Wade Ward, Benton Flippen, and the Camp Creek Boys. Also during this time, Doc Watson of nearby Watauga County rose to fame as a flat-picking guitarist and singer. African American musicians and communities recalled their roots as groups including the Five Royals of Winston-Salem hit the road, recording top-of-the-charts national hits.

From the 1960s through the present, alternative pop burst upon the scene as an outgrowth of the merging music styles and traditions in the Northwest Piedmont. Mitch Easter, who lives and records in the area, was a key originator of the "Winston-Salem sound." Most people don't realize that REM recorded their first album in Easter's Kernersville studio.

Add to all this the region's Moravian music performed in the area from the mid 1700s until today, and you have a vibrant mix of living music traditions found nowhere else in the United States. Our area musicians share a musical legacy which is unique and friendly, family-oriented, distinctly southern and yet accessible to a national and international audience.

Adapted in 2005 by Carolina Music Ways: Winston-Salem's Musical Heritage Resource Group from a summary written by Paul Brown for the group in 2000.