All events take place at the fruit. RSVP required - link here.
Daylong conversations, demonstrations, readings and performances:
10:30am
Color Me Country x Beloved Community: A songversation between Rissi Palmer and Kamara Thomas
Join us for a conversation and acoustic performance from Durham based songspeller, ritualist, multidisciplinary storyteller, and creator of Country Soul Songbook, Kamara Thomas and Rissi Palmer. Both mothers and musicians, the two discuss how to create like that life work balance, the pivot that so many artists have had to do in order to keep above water in the current climate, and building community within a musical space and balancing creative work with organizing and advocacy. Between the discussion, Kamara will play selections from her vast discography.
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12:00pm
Dip Family Reunion event with Spring Council
Curated by BEM | books and more
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1:30pm
Songs of the Living
A session in collaborating with storytellers through calls to sing, featuring Toshi Reagon, Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Destiny Hemphill.
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1:30-5:30pm
Bookmobile
Courtesy of Durham County Public Library
Books specially curated for checkout by Biscuits and Banjos and BEM | books and more!
Kids coloring sheets of Black country trailblazers available!
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3:00pm
Kristina Gaddy x Rhiannon Giddens: Go Back and Fetch It - A Book Talk and Signing
Join groundbreaking banjo scholar Kristina Gaddy and Pulitzer prize winner Rhiannon Giddens as they talk about their book Go Back and Fetch It: Recovering Early Black Music in the Americas for Fiddle and Banjo (UNC Press 2025). Books will be available for purchase and signing.
For the first time, this groundbreaking songbook collaboration by Gaddy and Giddens makes nineteen examples of early Black Atlantic music accessible and playable for today’s musicians, music enthusiasts, and historians. Presenting music from 1687 through the 1860s in modern treble clef and banjo tablature, along with the rich stories behind each song, Gaddy and Giddens take readers on a journey from the Caribbean across the Americas.
Immensely readable for amateurs and professionals alike, Go Back and Fetch It explains the significance of early Black Atlantic music and how the patterns of tunings, melodic lines, and lyrics shed light on the impact that Black American music has had on nineteenth-century popular music, early country, old time, and bluegrass. Each tune pairs with an engaging essay on its historical background and how the tune transformed over time, as well as information about the collector. Deeply researched and carefully approached, this essential source restores the roots of Black music to the musical canon.
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4:30pm
50 Years of The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis, with Michael Carter Jr.
Curated by BEM | books and more
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8:00-10:00pm
Evening frolic: a line and square dance
Music from Jake Blount, Justin Robinson, Rhiannon Giddens, Jason Sypher and Demeanor.
Calling by Phil Jamison.
Line dance song selection by Malinda D. Evans.