Songs of Immigrants and Emigrants

Abstract

As a crossroads state, North Carolina’s population has more than doubled since 1970. Musical immigrants move here for the same reasons as everyone else: quality of life, cost of living, scenery, inspiration. The influx includes everyone from jazz giant Branford Marsalis to electronic inventor Bob Moog. It runs two ways, however, with African-Americans fleeing the Jim Crow South for brighter futures up North -- Nina Simone, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk among them.