Each month, Our State senior editor — and resident soundtrack maker — Mark Kemp, a former music editor of Rolling Stone, curates a one-of-a-kind Spotify playlist featuring North Carolina songs and musicians.

Family reunions are all about nostalgia. Whether gathering for a country meal with relatives we don’t see on a regular basis, returning to familiar hometowns for get-togethers with old classmates, or heading to an old-time camp meeting, reunions are about celebrating memories — and making new ones.

In these 10 songs, some of North Carolina’s finest artists sing and play songs that’ll set the right tone for your reunion. Kicking things off is the Tryon-born High Priestess of Soul, Nina Simone, who sings in “I’m Going Back Home” about her memories of growing up in rural North Carolina: “I miss the fried chicken and collard greens / Miss the hot biscuits and the lima beans / Miss the prayer meeting where the people pray / With the drum beating till the break of day.”

From there, we hear some African American gospel by Durham’s Shirley Caesar (“How Long Has It Been Since You’ve Been Home?”), a sweet instrumental bluegrass tune from Flint Hill-born Earl Scruggs and his partner Lester Flatt (“Reunion”), and a joyous acoustic gospel song by the legendary Doc Watson of Deep Gap (“Old Camp Meeting Time”).

Some of the tracks here evoke vivid memories of specific places — like the Carolina of Chapel Hill-raised James Taylor’s iconic “Carolina in My Mind” and the Granite Falls of contemporary country star Eric Church’s “Give Me Back My Hometown.”

Capping things off is another gospel song — this time one of those extended, foot-stomping, handclapping, call-and-response numbers that will take you straight to your savior: “Old Revival Medley,” by Rocky Mount’s Barnes Family Reunion.