As formidable an assignment as recapitulating Winston- Salem’s verdant musical history into to a four-hour review might seem, the Vagabond Saints Society almost pulled it off Friday night on the celebration of the adjoined city’s centennial. Almost.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When two young people fall in love, the path before them is supposed to be strewn with lilies and tulips and sweetness and light. The storybook should carry them into old age, arm in arm and side by side, and end with “happily ever after.

Where: Huntersville When: Saturday, May 11 Drive time: approx. 1 hr. 45 min. Why go: Research shows that music is exponentially more appealing when paired with quantities of beer, but conversely, beer is also made more enjoyable when consumed to music.

“What an absolutely perfect day,” said a solemn Dave Wilson of Chatham County Line during the Raleigh roots foursome’s Saturday afternoon set on MerleFest’s Cabin Stage.

If it seems little bit unfair that the formidable Los Angeles rhythm and blues foursome Vintage Trouble can surge from demo-ing their debut to touring with the Who in a paltry two years time, consider their brisk ascension a return on time invested.

Never mind the fabulous coincidence of falling on another erstwhile sacred day, Record Store Day 2013 on Saturday, April 20 is no longer just a reason to geek out over the limited-supply swag that record labels pack in with 180-gram reissues of great albums, nor is it just for vinylholics to pop a band at their local purveyor.

Saturday night was a rare occasion for Elton John, and he couldn’t even have known it. An obscurity among one of the most indefatigable catalogs in all of popular music, the temerity behind one of John’s most heartfelt lines, “We all celebrate...

If there was a debate over which Grammy winner — Alicia Keys in the reaffirmation of her pop divadom, or R&B gatecrasher Miguel in the midst of a massive breakthrough — most emphatically grabbed the affections of the spare Easter weekend crowd at...

The generally pugnacious temperament of the crowd would seem to contradict the spirit of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s music — despite the self-effacing nature of a lot of his rhymes, Macklemore writes some of the most cerebral hip hop to come out in years, and Ryan Lewis’s beats are a durable rejoinder to the Trap phenomenon that’s burning itself out.

The ultra bipolarity of Thursday late-night performances logically begins with the downer rock of Must Be the Holy Ghost before the surfy Blood Waves are able to build you back up, but there’s beauty in Jared Draughon’s pathos of infatuation, which...

There’s an undeniable worldliness to Ahmed Gallab’s music, but just don’t call it World Music. The Sudanese-born multi-instrumentalist is already a veteran of indie giants Of Montreal, Yeasayer and Caribou, but it is his band Sinkane’s sterling DFA Records debut Mars.

Two chapters stand out in the retelling of popular music in Winston-Salem: doo-wop and R&B’s great overlooked band the “5” Royales and second, the crystalline pop rock made by Chris Stamey, Peter Holsapple, Mitch Easter and Will Rigby in various combinations.

For the first time, the essential machinery — a record label (Chapel Hill boutique Robust Records) and a publicist — is in place, though it’s not exactly the first time he’s stood on the launch pad. Exactly one year ago, his band the Bayonets were at the apex of the most concerted period of its existence.

Saturday night, little after 11 p.m. at On Pop of the World Studios, I was observing the members of Ameriglow rehearse for the band’s forthcoming debut performance and EP release at the Flatiron before excusing myself to catch the Urban Sophisticates’ final performance at Greene Street Club.

As other area “Best Of” polls have shown, the Olive Garden on High Point Road is equally as capable of winning Best Local Band as any actual group of musicians. It’s the downside of leaving it up to the people to decide. It’s why we have things like Electoral Colleges and Grammy committees.

Whitley isn’t just the yawning maw of damaged soul that served as the voice for one of the shortest-lived, but absolutely most worthwhile projects of 2011 in Daniel Lanois’s Black Dub — a band that not only featured the 1980s most important producer...

The vocal condition that I have is something that I’ll deal with for probably forever. The good news about it all is that I was told I would never sing again, but I’m still singing.

He spins No. 1 singles out of colloquialisms and good intentions that seem both effortless and obvious, augmented to megahit status by the kind of intrepid live reputation that is conferred to jam-heavy predecessors like the Dave Matthews Band or Widespread Panic.

Success brings Zac Brown Band bassist new creative outlets.

“It’s a dream that’s existed for about as long as the Music Tapes has. We’ve always had a passion and fascination for trying to create realities that someone could explore or wander into and lose themselves in,” Koster said in a recent phone interview.