RISING APPALACHIA
Folk / Soul / Americana / World
Opener: Abigail Dowd
Doors 7 PM / Show 8 PM *See venue bag policy*
18+ Valid ID required for entry into venue / Under 18 permitted with parent (Accepted forms of ID: State Issued ID or Driver's License, Military ID, Passport.)
RISING APPALACHIA:
In Appalachia, farmers still practice the ancestral tradition of companion planting. Corn grows tall as a trellis, beans climb the corn, and squash provides the ground cover. Rising Appalachia cultivates a similar symbiosis in their music, where Southern folk traditions, New Orleans swamp culture, and Atlanta’s street spirit strengthen each other. Known for their seamless harmonies, songcatching and storytelling, the band has released ten albums and toured throughout North America, South America, Europe, the Celtic Isles, Australia and beyond — performing everywhere from the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and Red Rocks to NPR’s Tiny Desk. All the while, the band has cultivated a devoted grassroots following traveling to communities big and small by train, horseback, bio-diesel bus and sailboat.
Sisters Leah Song and Chloe Smith were raised in Atlanta in a blue collar bohemian family. Their mom was a fiddler, their dad a sculptor. They went to contra dances, wandered the neighborhood forests and had a childhood filled with banjos, harmony singing and other folkways. In her early twenties, while studying art and Indigenous activism in Chiapas, Mexico, Leah returned to her love of folk music. The two sisters then began a wildly creative and successful career that has included busking in New Orleans, traveling with a circus from Southern Italy to Northern Sweden, and collecting songs in Ireland, Bulgaria and Colombia. Rising Appalachia also features the creative musicianship of Duncan Wickel (fiddle, cello), David Brown (upright bass, baritone guitar) and Biko Casini (drums, percussion) — each tradition keepers in their own right.
The band has released ten eclectic albums. *Leylines* (named after the earth energies that connect sacred sites) was produced by Joe Henry and features special guests Ani DiFranco and Trevor Hall. *Live from New Orleans at Preservation Hall* is a homecoming for the sisters, who lived in New Orleans for seven years and cut their teeth playing on the street in the French Quarter. The album is a pilgrimage to the homeplace of jazz and features eminent local musicians Aurora Nealand and Branden Lewis from the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Folk and Anchor is a curated collection of cover songs by everyone from Bob Dylan to James Blake, Erykah Badu to Beyoncé. Their highly improvised and hypnotic album, *The Lost Mystique of Being in the Know*, was recorded a single day and features occasional bandmate Arouna Diarra from Burkina Faso on ngoni who amplifies the African roots of American folk traditions.
Rising Appalachia’s forthcoming album, *Trade My Troubles*, is a soft light glowing from a quieter, more introspective time. It features songs that celebrate rest, restoring your spirit after burnout, and replenishing yourself in the wilds and in tradition. The generous 16-song record is bookended by a traditional Irish traveller song and an Appalachian fiddle tune, both nods to their ancestral lineages. In between, there are songs about motherhood, moonlight, heartbreak and birdsong. “The album tilts towards our inner experiences,” Chloe reflects. “I wanted to write about love and how it expanded and broke open in new ways after I became a mother.” Due out in October 2026, *Trade My Troubles* features special guests Aoife O’Donovan, Ayla Nereo, Bonnie Paine, and Brittany Haas.
Sisters Leah and Chloe have long been involved in movement building, direct action, and advocacy work. They've partnered with national organizations like the Prison Yoga Project and Honor the Earth, been invited to perform at the Hopi Reservation and Standing Rock, and have used their music and platform to make the world a better place. Rising Appalachia pioneered the “Slow Music Movement,” an effort to create sustainable touring practices that included making handmade merch and welcoming local nonprofits, herbalists, farmers and poets to their shows. When Hurricane Helene hit their home in Western NC, they volunteered for months — helping with supply drops, rescue efforts, and water deliveries. Some days, they’d gather under a lean-to and plug their banjos and fiddles into a generator to share their songs and uplift everyone’s spirits.
Rising Appalachia bring their full humanity to the stage. Audiences are entranced by their honey-hued voices and moved by the deep yearnings, fierce questions, and unshakable hope that courses through their music. Their shows are communal gatherings where people remember their connection to the earth, each other, and the old songs that have carried us through every season of being human.
ABIGAIL DOWD:
Abigail Dowd is a singer-songwriter and guitarist whose music weaves together Southern roots, personal experience, and a deep connection to the natural world. Raised beneath the longleaf pines of North Carolina’s Sandhills, she grew up with a deep appreciation for storytelling and the healing power of music. Her latest release, Saints & Warriors, blends blues-rooted Americana with soulful storytelling. No Depression describes the album as “at once grounded and metaphysical.”
A three-time performer at the North Carolina Folk Festival, Dowd has earned a reputation for captivating live performances that are equal parts intimate and powerful, inviting audiences into songs that honor the people, places, and stories that shape us.
