By Cliff Bellamy

cbellamy@heraldsun.com; 419-6744

DURHAM — Wayne Martin has been immersed in the traditional music of North Carolina’s Piedmont since the early 1970s, when he began playing the fiddle. In 1988, Martin joined the staff of the Folklife Program at the North Carolina Arts Council (where he is now the folklife director) and began recording the stringband music of the region.

Among the many musicians Martin (and other documentarians) recorded were fiddler Joe Thompson (mentor to the Carolina Chocolate Drops) and cousin and banjo player Odell Thompson, fiddler Lauchlin Shaw, banjo player A.C. Overton, guitarist Fred Olson, and many others. Some of those field recordings have now been digitized and are available on a two-disc release titled “Going Down to Raleigh: Stringband Music In The North Carolina Piedmont 1976-1998,” put out by Pine Cone (Piedmont Council of Traditional Music), of which Martin also is one of the founders.

Martin will discuss the field recordings documented on this new CD Thursday at The Regulator Bookshop on Ninth Street. A short concert of traditional music will follow the discussion. Joining Martin will be his wife Margaret (probably on banjo), and fiddler Evelyn Shaw, daughter of Lauchlin Shaw.

Shaw’s father “was an incredible second fiddle player” who was still playing dances in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Martin said in a phone interview. Thursday, Evelyn Shaw will reflect on growing up in a family that “had come to the Cape Fear River Valley from Scotland in the early 1800s and had this fiddle music tradition,” Martin said. He and Evelyn Shaw likely will play a two-fiddle piece at the event.

On several recordings on the CD, Martin plays guitar or fiddle with the Shaws and other musicians. Other documentarians who made recordings are Barry Poss, Bob Carlin and Wes Lachot. Jeff Carroll took the tapes, housed in the state archives, and put them in digital form. Martin praised the sound quality compared to the analog tapes. “They’re very close to what the original sounds like, “ he said. “That saved a lot of valuable fieldwork.”

Martin and other members of Pine Cone wanted these recordings released publicly to create more awareness of the Piedmont stringband tradition. Martin led the project and produced the CD, which comes with liner notes Martin wrote, biographies of all the musicians, and details about each individual performance.

North Carolinians have what Martin calls “a big awareness gap” when it comes to this indigenous music. “We are known around the country as one of the hotbeds of string band music,” he said. “Part of the point in releasing the record is a lot of people who live in the area don’t realize that.” He would like for the state to make better use of that musical history when it markets itself to the world.

When he originally made these recordings, Martin said he thought about making CDs for each artist, who would then use them to get income and perhaps some festival appearances. “But what I didn’t really count on was that most of them really didn’t want that as much as I wanted that for them,” Martin said.

Listeners get a good sense of the diversity of styles and influences — European, African-American and Native American traditions — and the diversity of instruments (harmonic and hammered dulcimer), Martin said. “The artists benefited from being presented together. … You’re hearing a lot of different sounds to engage your ear,” he said.

The counties represented on the recording are Alamance, Orange, Randolph, Chatham, Wake, Lee, Harnett and Hoke. Martin said he also has recordings from eastern North Carolina, but getting those digitized is a project for another time.

GO & DO

WHAT: Musician Wayne Martin will discuss the field recordings that went into the new Pine Cone CD, “Going Down to Raleigh: Stringband Music in The North Carolina Piedmont 1976-1998”

WHEN: 7 p.m., Thursday

WHERE: The Regulator Bookshop, 720 Ninth St., Durham

ADMISSION: Free

OTHER INFORMATION: Martin and other members of the Pine Cone organization will give a short concert after the discussion