An Evening with Malcolm Holcombe

217 South White Street,Wake Forest NC 27587

25 September, 2021

Description

Malcolm Holcombe is a part of the Blue Ridge hills, a Southern folk golem brought to life by the deep mysteries of the hills. Singer-songwriter Malcolm Holcombe is a both a part of and apart from the Blue Ridge hills, a Southern folk golem brought to life by the deeper mysteries that give these hills so much of their folklore. His songs belong in the same Western North Carolina echelon of mysteries like the Brown Mountain Lights or the ghostly apparitions along Helen’s Bridge or the phantom choir of Roan Mountain — things that surpass conventional explanation but summon forth a combination of awe and primal longing, an ache to understand the great questions of the human condition. Malcolm may not have the answers to those questions, but his songs are drawn from the same waters that begin as a trickle in the deep woods: wild, untamed, filled with the whispers and roars of all the mysteries and wonders those hills contain. And like the region’s otherworldly manifestations, they come from a place that transcends easy understanding, even by their creator. “I don’t know, man; people ask me that stuff, and I can’t really tell you where it comes from,” Holcombe says. “I’m not really good at pulling a Houdini and getting the pencil to levitate. Getting my pencil to levitate is impossible; it’s not in my realm of being. Like my friend Eddie from up here in Swannanoa says, ‘If you like to get corn, you got to get out the hoe.’” Praise for Malcolm: “Malcolm Holcombe is an artist of deep mystery and high art; he is who I listen to, and have for over 20 years,” says Darrell Scott, one of Nashville’s premier sessions instrumentalists and a nationally respected singer-songwriter. “All the goods that I value in songs and artistry are in Malcolm.” “I think for most songwriters, songs are like clothing. Malcolm's songs are his skin,” writes fellow Nashville tunesmith David Olney. “They are a direct expression of who is as a man.” “People like to say Malcolm Holcombe is a national treasure, and they got that right,” adds R.B. Morris, an East Tennessee singer-songwriter, playwright and the former poet laureate of the City of Knoxville. “He stands on all the old American music traditions and takes them his own way into a very individual music expression.”