University of Florida Performing Arts

presents

David Holt and

Josh Goforth

Thursday, March 21, 2013, 7:30 p.m.

Squitieri Studio Theatre

ProgramThe program will be announced from the stage.

About David Holt and Josh GoforthFour-time Grammy Award winner David Holt and acoustic music star Josh Goforth join together to bring the joy and spirit of old-time mountain music and stories to life. They combine the virtuosic sounds of guitar, banjo, fiddle, slide guitar and mandolin with a world of exciting rhythm instruments. Goforth descends from many of the old-timers Holt learned from in the late 1960s in Lonesome Mountain, N.C. Audiences of all ages are treated to a show exploding with creative energy, fun and amazing musicianship.

Holt is recognized as one of America’s foremost folk musicians and storytellers, and is a veteran performer on stage, radio and television. At an early age he had the passion to become an old-time banjo player and traveled to remote North Carolina mountain communities searching for the best traditional musicians. Holt found hundreds of old-time mountaineers with a wealth of folk music, stories and wisdom. He not only learned to play the banjo but many unusual instruments like the mouth bow, the bottleneck slide guitar and even the washboard from the oldest woman in the world. For more than three decades, Holt’s passion for traditional music and culture has fueled a successful performing and recording career. He has earned many awards and performed and recorded with many of his mentors including Chet Atkins, Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, Roy Acuff, Grandpa Jones and the oldest person in the world, 123-year-old Susie Brunson. One of the highlights of Holt’s musical career was accompanying the legendary Doc Watson for the last 14 years of Watson’s performing career.

Holt has hosted such popular television programs as The Nashville Network’s Fire on the Mountain and American Music Shop and was featured in the film, O Brother Where Art Thou?. Currently, Holt hosts PBS’ Great Scenic Railway Journeys, Folkways and Public Radio’s Riverwalk Jazz, as well as maintaining a busy solo concert schedule. Holt lives in Asheville, N.C. Vogue magazine declared him “the best minstrel and storyteller.” The New Yorker calls Holt a “virtuoso.” The Boston Globe: “The best of the best.” The Asheville-Citizen Times said, “David Holt could ring music out of a stump.”

Goforth must have been born musical — he was already playing piano in church at age 4 — but it was an experience he had in the sixth grade that really lit the fuse of his precocious and explosive musical career. A performance at Goforth’s

middle school by Holt and Sheila Kay Adams caused him to start thinking about the musical heritage of his native Madison County. A couple years later, he began to learn guitar from his great-uncle. The great-great-great-grandson of Madison County fiddler Asbury McDevitt was launched on a career in traditional and acoustic music.

Over the next few years he learned to play at least 10 different instruments by ear, learning from such local masters as Gordon and Arvil Freeman. After high school he went to East Tennessee State University to study music education, and to be a part of ETSU’s famous bluegrass and country music program. In 2000, he played fiddle for the movie Songcatcher, both onscreen and on the soundtrack. He has performed all over the U.S. as well as Europe and Asia. In 2000, 2003 and 2005, he was named fiddler of the festival at Fiddler’s Grove making him the youngest ever three-time winner. This secured him the title “master fiddler.” He just released his first band album titled, I Feel Fine.

Goforth says that one of the main career goals is to get young people interested in traditional music. “In all the years I’ve been playing traditional and old time music, I’ve always said that if all people could really see and hear it live, they’d fall in love with it,” he said.