Balsam Range is a PineCone favorite. They’ve played in nearly every setting we’ve got, from the festival mainstage and Down Home Concert series to pick-up sessions in the hotel lobby during World of Bluegrass. As a band, they are quintessentially North Carolina.
They make their home in Haywood County, North Carolina. It’s a close-knit community that sits in between the Great Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains. That experience comes out in their music and songwriting. Family, faith, work and home are common themes.
While the mountains are home, the band comes down to Raleigh every chance they get, “PineCone and the City of Raleigh, they make bluegrass happen,” said Tim Surrett on stage at a Down Home Concert in 2021. Tim plays bass, dobro and sings with Balsam Range. He says Raleigh “…is the center of what’s happening in bluegrass music and acoustic music and PineCone is a big huge part of that.”
Tim was the Chair of the IBMA Board when the decision was made to move World of Bluegrass to Raleigh. “They sent me down here from the IBMA to meet with what they call the Local Organizing Committee. And the mayor was there, all the elected officials, there must have been 40 people around a big table telling us how they were going to want to help,” remembers Tim. “I was just blown away, I didn’t know there was 40 people that liked bluegrass, much less that wanted to help. And now IBMA comes to town and 200,000 people come with them.”
2018’s World of Bluegrass in Raleigh was a big year for Balsam Range. That’s the year that Buddy Melton won Male Vocalist of the Year, Tim Surrett won Bass Player of the Year and the band was named Entertainer of the Year.
“It’s been a joy to play at Red Hat Amphitheater, to play out on the streets when they block off the downtown for the festival,” says Surrett. “What an honor it is to play for PineCone. All the work they do in this area is pretty amazing.”
