Shaped By Sound

Charlotte-based rapper Reuben Vincent started with a laptop and a dream. That dream became a reality when he was discovered by legendary hip-hop producer 9th Wonder at the age of 13. Reuben brings his thought-provoking lyricism to the Shaped by Sound stage and discusses his family’s Liberian heritage, the hip-hop renaissance in the Queen City and what it’s like to work with 9th Wonder.

The indie duo Fancy Gap, a new musical collaboration by Raleigh natives Stuart McLamb (of The Love Language) and Charles Crossingham, aims for pure pop-rock bliss. They bring their lush and expansive songs to the Shaped by Sound stage. Plus, they discuss the Golden Age of Radio, how music can create a sense of place and how creating well-crafted songs is like making a juicy cheeseburger.

Strap in, folks—the Blue Footed Boobies are ready to rock. The Wilmington duo brings their raw and bombastic guitars and drums to the Shaped by Sound stage. They also discuss the electric feeling of a live show, van conversations and the importance of being in a band with your best friend.

More Asheville than Nashville, this country-rock outfit combines bluegrass with honky-tonk to create a rollicking sound all its own. The band’s Phil Barker and Robert Greer discuss the Asheville music scene in the wake of Hurricane Helene, “working man’s vintage” and “frying pan tunes” and the evolution of their distinctive style.

Shirlette Ammons is a Peabody Award-winning producer, poet and hip-hop artist based in Durham, NC. On her latest album, Spectacles, she blends aspects of her eastern North Carolina roots with her love for her Triangle-based community to explore the concept of spectacle: how we see, what we see and how we’re seen. Shirlette is joined on stage by a full band and Raleigh’s own Rissi Palmer.

The cosmic country of Blue Cactus’ Steph Stewart and Mario Arnez has been likened to artists as diverse as Fleetwood Mac, Bobbie Gentry and David Bowie. Playing with a full band, they deliver a dreamy performance that will keep your head in the clouds. Plus, they share their fascination with Western wear, their appreciation for “Weird Al” Yankovic and why it’s important to look for silver linings.

On the surface, the quartet Mipso may seem like a traditional folk-bluegrass band with its exquisite harmonies, melodies and instrumentation. Zoom in, however, and you’ll also hear layers of modern sounds and influences. In this episode, band members Jacob Sharp and Joseph Terrell discuss coming back to NC to play together, crafting a live record and the Japanese origin of the band’s unique name.

For 80 years, Alice Gerrard has studied, played and preserved American folk music, influencing countless musicians, including Emmylou Harris and Rhiannon Giddens. In addition to being one of the foremost historians of the genre, she’s a Grammy nominee and a musical legend. Alice is joined on stage by Rebecca Branson Jones (pedal steel), Reed Stutz (mandolin) and Tatiana Hargreaves (fiddle).

Gospel, soul, jazz, R&B and hip-hop—there isn’t much that lives outside the musical universe of Winston-Salem native Sonny Miles. In 2019, one of his musical collaborations caught the ear of President Barack Obama, who included the song on his popular playlist. In this episode, Sonny discusses Afrofuturism, being inspired by the sounds of his Nana’s house and what it’s like to be “in the pocket.”

Jazz legend Nnenna Freelon has seven Grammy nominations and has performed in the most prestigious venues on the planet. But for the first time in her 40-year career, she’s releasing an album of original songs. In this episode, she performs her new material and discusses how experimenting with music besides jazz standards allowed her to get “underneath the skin.”

What’s more punk rock than believing and investing in yourself? The Triangle-based indie rock band Superchunk harnesses the frenetic energy they’ve developed over decades of touring in a performance for the ages. They also discuss how their DIY mentality generated the iconic label Merge Records and share what it’s like to see both young and old fans sing their hearts out to their songs.

What happens when you open the floodgates to your emotions and channel them into music? Sluice’s Justin Morris and Avery Sullivan perform songs from their latest record, “Radial Gate,” named one of 2023’s best albums by The Guardian, as well as new unreleased tracks. They also discuss how their atmospheric music is inspired by the “beauty of living” and our deeply complex relationship with nature.

Singer-songwriter Iron & Wine (aka Sam Beam) has multiple Grammy nominations, and his songs have been included in numerous film, TV and commercial productions. Despite this exposure, he lives a quiet family life in NC. In this episode, he performs his introspective songs, including the Grammy-nominated “All in Good Time,” with a full band and shadow puppeteers from the collective Manual Cinema.

Al Strong is an award-winning trumpet player, composer, recording artist, and educator. A cultural innovator, he is the co-founder of the non-profit the Art of Cool Project, which spawned the internationally recognized Art of Cool Music Festival. A native of Washington, D.C., Strong is a graduate of the renowned Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts and a passionate advocate for young people in music education. His experiences studying music at renowned Jazz Studies programs North Carolina Central University and Northern Illinois University, afforded him invaluable opportunities to perform at premiere jazz festivals.

Describing the Durham-based Hiss Golden Messenger is like trying to grasp a forgotten word: It’s always on the tip of your tongue, but hard to speak. Song writer and bandleader M.C. Taylor’s music is at once familiar, yet impossible to categorize: Elements from the American songbook—the steady, churning acoustic guitar and mandolin, the gospel emotion, the eerie steel guitar tracings, the bobbing and weaving organ and electric piano—provide the bedrock for Taylor’s existential ruminations about parenthood, joy, hope ,and loneliness—our delicate, tightrope balance of dark and light—that offer fully engaged contemporary commentary on the present. And then there’s an indescribable spirit and movement: Hiss Golden Messenger’s music grooves. There’s nothing else quite like it.

River Whyless is a band from Asheville, North Carolina whose music sits somewhere between folk, indie and something harder to define. Known for their festival appearances (Newport Folk, Bonnaroo) and for their performances on platforms like NPR’s Tiny Desk, their sound has earned them a reputation for thoughtful songwriting and surprising arrangements. Their latest album, Monflora, feels like a conversation—between four distinct voices, between tradition and experimentation, and between the familiar and the unexpected. A return to their roots as well as a leap forward, the album blends lush harmonies with a raw, unfiltered energy.

“It’s wild, the ways that humans try to make boundaries out of things,” Skylar Gudasz says. With her third LP, COUNTRY, (“Best of 2024” —Bandcamp) she interrogates borders of land and sea, mind and body: the limits of the lines we draw for ourselves. Raised in rural Virginia, a deep, lifelong affection for nature comes into focus; her approach informed as much by a summer night sky as the pacifist tenets of a Quaker upbringing. Gudasz released 2020’s Cinema (“a career-making star turn” —MOJO) after 2016 debut Oleander (“the Joni Mitchell the South never had” —Bitter Southerner). Playing in the live bands of Hiss Golden Messenger, Eric Bachmann, Big Star’s Third, and the Ask Me Anything super trio with Libby Rodenbough and Kate Rhudy, she’s staked out her own poetic corner as a songwriter – drawing upon rootsy surf, witchy rock & roll, cinematic Southern twang and dreamy art-pop.

Jim Lauderdale, known as “Mr. Americana,” is a Nashville singer-songwriter who learned to sing and play multiple instruments in his native North Carolina. A two-time Grammy Award winner with 38 albums released and two more coming. His songs have topped country charts, and in 2002, the Americana Music Association named him both Songwriter and Artist of the Year. His Grammys include Bluegrass Album of the Year for Lost in the Lonesome Pines, which he won with Ralph Stanley. He received the Wagonmaster Award in 2016 and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2025. After collaborating on six albums with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter and mentoring emerging artists, Lauderdale continues leading his band, The Game Changers, creating music rooted in church hymns, bluegrass, country, and rock and roll.

A smooth and cheerful aura combined with unique style and therapeutic vocals, North Carolina based RnB artist CYANCA is gaining momentum with some of music’s best critics such as Revolt, Lyrical Lemonade, RNB Radar, and Okayplayer. Her personality and eccentric style capture your attention, but her voice commands it. The honesty in her music stems from personal experiences, and CYANCA believes packaging and delivering her heart to listeners will provide them comfort, energy, and a heightened love of self.

Faith and Harmony is a family group—two sets of three sisters who are first cousins. They grew up singing together in Greenville, North Carolina. All six members are descendants of Dorothy Vines Daniels of the Glorifying Vines Sisters, a gospel group that for many years has been a Music Maker partner artist, and great nieces of sculptor/guitarmaker/author/musician Freeman Vines.

Ben Folds is widely regarded as one of the major music influencers of our generation. The Emmy-nominated singer-songwriter-composer has created an enormous body of genre-bending music that includes pop albums with Ben Folds Five, multiple solo albums, and numerous collaborative records. His latest album features a live orchestral performance of his hits captured just before he stepped down as Artistic Advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) at the Kennedy Center in DC. He currently tours as a pop artist, while also performing with some of the world’s greatest symphony orchestras.

Tan and Sober Gentlemen play Irish tunes, ballads, and pub songs right next to the Appalachian fiddle tunes of their youth, melding the two into what they call “Irish-American hillbilly music.” They've earned a reputation as one of the South’s hardest-hitting live acts, playing at blazing tempos and putting every last bit of energy they possess into the show. The result is a raucous celebration of the Carolinas’ Irish heritage, with drinking, dancing, and merriment galore.

Charly Lowry stands as a soulful powerhouse in the realm of music, enchanting audiences with her velvety vocals, heartfelt compositions and commanding stage presence. Her voice, imbued with a depth and resonance reminiscent of legends like Janis Joplin, Bonnie Raitt and Tracy Chapman, possesses a distinctiveness that is uniquely hers, echoing the rich heritage of her Indigenous ancestry rooted in the dark waters of Robeson County, NC. Her musical journey has been marked by acclaim and recognition, including reaching the Semi-Finals of Season 3 of American Idol, earning widespread praise for her prowess as a vocalist, songwriter and instrumentalist. Charly has harmonized with esteemed musicians, sharing the stages and studios with Grammy laureates and cultural icons like Rhiannon Giddens, Pura Fé and Rissi Palmer, solidifying her as a force in music.

Proclaimed a "national treasure" by the Los Angeles Times, GRAMMY® Award-winning singer, songwriter, producer, and actor Anthony Hamilton has achieved global sales of over 50+ million albums. The NC Music Hall of Fame inductee notably performed for Nelson Mandela, President Obama and First Lady Michelle, and most recently President Joe Biden cementing his place in the history books as the "narrator of love." Introduced by way of the iconic 2003 smash "Charlene," his raw, awe-inspiring performances garnered the attention of NPR, where he starred in their noteworthy documentary series. He appeared in American Gangster and lent his voice to "Freedom" from the Academy® Award-nominated Django Unchained. Hamilton sang the National Anthem at the 2019 NBA All-Star Game in his hometown of Charlotte and released his tenth full-length studio album, LOVE IS THE NEW BLACK, amid all the racial injustices of George Floyd and the COVID-19 global pandemic.

The Connells are one of North Carolina’s most enduring and internationally successful indie rock bands, known for their melodic, literate songwriting. Formed in Raleigh in 1984 by brothers Mike and David Connell, the band emerged as a defining voice of the American college-rock and alternative scene. Their 1993 album "Ring" introduced them to a global audience, propelled by the breakout single “‘74–’75,” a Top 10 hit across Europe and a lasting generational anthem. While often associated with that era, The Connells have never operated as a nostalgia act, instead building a deep, consistent catalog. In 2021, they returned with their first studio album in two decades, engaging more directly with contemporary themes while staying true to their melodic core. Most recently, "Set the Stage," the band’s first-ever live album, captures The Connells as they’ve always been best understood—measured, powerful and fully present onstage.

Bleeds is not only the best Wednesday record—it’s also the most Wednesday record, a patchwork-style triumph of literary allusions and outlaw grit, of place-based poetry and hair-raising noise. Karly Hartzman—founder, frontwoman, and primary lyricist of the Asheville-born band—credits Wednesday’s tightened grasp on their own identity to time spent collaborating on previous albums, plus a tour schedule that’s been both rewarding and relentless. “'Bleeds' is the spiritual successor to 'Rat Saw God,' and I think the quintessential ‘Wednesday Creek Rock’ album,” Hartzman says, articulating satisfaction with the ways her band has sharpened its trademark sound, how they’ve refined the formula that makes them one of the most interesting rock bands of their generation.