HOME TOWN: Award-winning bluegrass band lights up Tar Heel stage

Published 8:47 pm Wednesday, March 18, 2015

CAROLINA ROAD BAND TIES THAT BIND: Lorraine Jordan is bringing her award-winning bluegrass show home to eastern North Carolina this weekend.

CAROLINA ROAD BAND
TIES THAT BIND: Lorraine Jordan is bringing her award-winning bluegrass show home to eastern North Carolina this weekend.

A hometown girl made good will revisit her roots this weekend — and bring along her band for the ride.

Lorraine Jordan is the vocalist and mandolin player for Carolina Road, a bluegrass group that scored big at the 2015 Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America awards. The Vanceboro native was given the nod for Female Traditional Vocalist of the Year, Song of the Year for the original song “That’s Kentucky,” and Carolina Road bandmate Ben Greene was awarded Banjo Player of the Year by the bluegrass organization. Along with Josh Goforth on fiddle and the other lead vocalist, Tommy Long, on guitar, the band’s CD, “Lorraine Jordan & Carolina Road,” spent five week at No. 1 on Bluegrass Today and “That’s Kentucky” earned a No. 1 spot on Bluegrass Unlimited.

All four band-members are North Carolina natives, but only Jordan hails from the eastern region. Her hometown of Vanceboro honored her last year — she received the key to the town — during a ceremony in which the band’s video “Back to My Roots” premiered. The video was filmed in Vanceboro and captured the small town, and such iconic images as the Vera’s Diner storefront. Jordan also grew up visiting grandparents in Washington — her grandmother, Ruby Miller Jordan, an inspiration to the budding musician.

“My grandmother was a big influence on me. She was a business woman; she ran a grocery story — women didn’t really do that back then,” Jordan said.

She didn’t grow up in a musical family, nor did she sing in a church choir, but by the time Jordan turned 16, she knew she wanted to play music.

“I know when I was a little girl, I asked my Dad if I could have a banjo. He got me a guitar,” Jordan laughed.

The mandolin player grew up on Creedence Clearwater Revival, back when they were rock and roll — by today’s standards CCR would be considered hardcore country, she said. Her exposure to bluegrass, and playing influence, came from the music of Bill Monroe, a legendary mandolinist, singer and songwriter known as the “Father of Bluegrass.”

Jordan moved to the Raleigh area in the 1980s and later, the band that’s called one of the hardest working in the bluegrass scene was formed. In the past five years alone, they’ve played in 48 states and 11 countries, including performances at major festivals like Merlefest and as headliners at the Pigeon Forge, Tenn., bluegrass festival Christmas in the Smokies.

Saturday, Lorraine Jordan and Carolina Road will bring their bluegrass show as close to home as possible — along with two tour buses full of Raleigh-based fans — when they play at the Tar Heel Variety Theater in Chocowinity. The show starts at 7:30 p.m.; tickets are $8.

The Tar Heel Variety Theater is located at 485 Carrow Road, Chocowinity. For more information, visit tarheelvarietytheater.com or call 252-975-2117.