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.
In our April issue, we explore stories about being lost and found. When Southern musicians sing about things lost and found, there’s usually a spiritual component involved. That’s certainly the case in four of the 10 tracks by these North Carolina artists. We’re not talking about lost rings or found shark teeth here — we’re talking about lost souls and found religion.
One song that sums up this dilemma better than any song ever written is the inspirational standard “Amazing Grace,” which finds the singer — in this case, Durham gospel legend Shirley Caesar — a lost soul who gets found by religion. Other artists exploring the same theme here are Troutman native Jim Lauderdale (“You’ll Find Her Name Written There”), Wilmington-born Charlie Daniels (“I’ve Found a Hiding Place”), and the pride of Cleveland County, banjo innovator Earl Scruggs (“I Found Love”). The Scruggs track initially seems like just another old-fashioned love song until singer Vince Gill comes in with the first stanza: “I was swimming in a river of darkness / Feel the waters rushing over my head / Like an angel, you were there to save me / Just one touch of your gentle hand.” Boom! The protagonist — once lost but now found — not only finds his soul mate in this rollicking bluegrass number, but he finds his channel to the divine.
Not every singer of “lost and found” songs is so deep — particularly not the ones singing about things lost. Those songs usually involve relationship woes, whiskey, or an existential crisis. Take Kellie Pickler, the Albemarle singer who gained fame as a contestant on American Idol. In the honky-tonk barnburner “Where’s Tammy Wynette?” Pickler seems to have lost one of her country-music heroines — and, considering the no-good man she’s singing about, Pickler could really use Wynette’s musical wisdom right about now. And then there’s Chapel Hill swamp-rockers Southern Culture on the Skids, who lose a few days to partying in their song “Lost Weekend.” Shelby-born Don Gibson finds himself out on the proverbial “Lost Highway,” contemplating life and love; Tryon legend Nina Simone loses her man in the Porgy & Bess standard “My Man’s Gone Now;” and Chapel Hill jangle-pop pioneer Chris Stamey gets nostalgic about all kinds of stuff when he thinks back on a lost romance in “I Lost Track of the Time.”
So who here actually finds anything but religion? Kannapolis-born George Clinton, that’s who. In a sultry departure from his amped-up funk sound, Clinton uses a mix of spoken and sung vocals to express his appreciation for finding the love of his life in the gospel-flavored “I Found You.”
Amazing grace, indeed.
North Carolina is known for many things, but nothing more important this week than the qualities of endurance, resilience, and hope.
By day, this adventure park in the Triad is a fall festival to die for. By night, the undead come alive for Halloween tricks. Welcome to one man’s vision of year-round merrymaking.
North Carolina’s border dances across the mountains as it traces four different states. Life here can be more remote, but good neighbors are never far away.
The Blue Ridge Parkway stands out among America’s national parks: Unfurling across six Appalachian mountain chains, it connects dozens of rural communities and binds together generations of families through shared memories.
