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Sunday, May 11
Martin & Johnson
3-4 p.m. Daniels Auditorium, NC Museum of History, Downtown Raleigh
Free Admission

Oldtime string band music consists of a wide assortment-ballads, blues, tin pan alley hits and sacred songs-Martin & Johnson (Wayne Martin, Margaret Martin and Craig Johnson) delivers the music with flair in solo and in three-part harmony.

Fiddler and harmonica player Wayne Martin says their musical mentors belonged to a generation that played for tobacco farm frolics and rural square dances, for medicine shows and live country radio. "We try to honor these rich musical traditions in our playing," Wayne said. "We strive for the energy of breakdowns and hornpipes, salted with a good dose of the blues."

Wayne Martin's Georgia roots include shape-note singers, country songwriters and fiddlers. In his adopted state of North Carolina, he has performed with African American fiddle and banjo dynamos Joe and Odell Thompson, with Piedmont dance fiddler Lauchlin Shaw and banjo player A.C. Overton, and with mountain ballad singer Doug Wallin. His friendship with the legendary blues guitarist Etta Baker led to trips where the two would call on Baker's relatives or visit the haunts of her childhood. She taught Wayne some rare old nuggets which they recorded on fiddle and banjo shortly before she died.

A North Carolina native, Margaret Martin played for years with "Hash House" Harvey Ellington and "Starvin" Sam Pridgen, original members of the 1930s-era Tobacco Tags and the Swingbillies. Later, she frequented the Johnston County home of blueswoman Algie Mae Hinton, learning guitar licks and songs from her maternal-side O'Neal family tradition. Margaret was the guitarist for the Tar Heel Hot Shots, a Piedmont string band.

A modern-day songster with a monster memory, Craig Johnson knows hundreds of songs, from Scottish ballads to Tin Pan Alley hits. A highly respected fiddler, banjo player and guitarist, Craig is a long-time member of the Washington, D.C.-based Double Decker String Band. His fiddling was shaped early on by master musicians such as Kahle Brewer and Luther Davis of Galax, Virginia and Clyde Davenport of Jamestown, Tennessee. He has performed at festivals and workshops throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Of a recent performance at the International String Band Festival in Calhoun, Georgia, one reviewer called Martin and Johnson an "outstanding example of American string band music, [whose] skill and delivery illustrates the indelible mark our own pioneers left on American roots music." Program notes will be provided. For directions and more information, please call (919) 807-7900,

Program notes will be provided. For directions and more information, please call (919) 807-7900.