- Region
About
Donna Ray Norton sings Appalachian ballads, tells stories and carries her culture forward as the eighth generation of her family to do so, in Madison County, North Carolina, in the Sodom Laurel (Revere) community. South Arts named her a 2026 Emerging Artist. She learned her songs by ear, knee to knee, from her kin, carrying on one of the oldest oral traditions still alive in the United States. Sierra Ferrell, Tim O'Brien, Grahame Lesh, Warren Haynes and Ketch Secor are among the artists she has performed with, bringing unaccompanied traditional ballads to contemporary audiences, and has drawn coverage from Garden & Gun, Rolling Stone and Oxford American. She founded and leads The Nest of Singing Birds and hosts the monthly Old Marshall Jail Ballad Swap, working to keep the ballads a living tradition rather than museum pieces. A high school senior project first drew her into her heritage. The documentary Madison County Project featured her, and she has sung at Mars Hill University Heritage Day, the Bascom Lamar Lunsford Festival and the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival.
Good to know
The place
- Kind of place
- Not listed yet
- Open since
- Not listed yet
Find it
- Phone
- Not listed yet
- Not listed yet
Plan your visit
- Tickets & prices
- Not listed yet
How this listing gets checked
Needs review, claimed or verified: what each step means.ShowHide
- This listing, nowNeeds review
Built from public sources. Most details are probably right, but nobody from the venue has looked yet.
- Claimed
Someone from the venue has signed in and taken charge of the listing. They can fix details and post events.
- Verified
We’ve confirmed the details with the venue. Look for the check mark.
Sources: OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors), MusicBrainz and the Come Hear NC Music Office venue list. Spotted something wrong? Suggest a correction and we’ll check it.
Suggest a correction
Something out of date or wrong? Tell us what should change.OpenClose
We check every suggestion against a source before we update the listing.
Free for venues, groups and artists
Is this you? Claim your page, free.
Artist pages are built from public records. Claim yours to fix the details, add photos you own and post your shows. It’s free.