There’s Always a Cardinal at the Window

There’s music in the mountains. With a rich history of folk, Americana and string band music set against the backdrop of the Appalachians, western North Carolina continues to serve as a breeding ground for young artists sustaining the traditions of Southern singer-songwriters. 

Music and recreation journalist Grayson Haver Currin knows this better than anyone. A Raleigh native, he has been covering North Carolina acts for decades, having served as an editor for local alternative magazine Indy Week and later as a contributor for the New York Times, Pitchfork, GQ and Rolling Stone. 

“There’s a lot of culture in the mountains,” said Currin. “I think it’s one of the most vital versions of American music, frankly.”

In 2025, the mountains of North Carolina are often mentioned in a different context. In late September, Hurricane Helene devastated the western region of the state, causing record amounts of rainfall, intense flooding and deadly mudslides. An estimated 107 North Carolinians died, and the storm caused nearly $60 billion in damages to the region. It is the most destructive natural disaster in North Carolina history.

“I think what happened was a bit like watching your best friend or your parents turn on you in a way that you never expected they would, which is maybe naive,” said Currin. “When it’s in balance, it’s one of the most beautiful places in the country by far, it’s just a perfect, perfect place. But when it’s not in balance, it f*ckin’ kills you, and kills your neighbors, and it destroys your town.”

After traveling the country in a van with his wife, Currin moved to Hot Springs, a mountainous town about 45 minutes north of Asheville. They stayed in the region for four years before moving to a small town near the mountains of Boulder, Colorado, but he still holds the Appalachians close to his heart. He got the North Carolina state seal tattooed on his right arm after he left the state.

 “You know, my body is here, all of my heart is here in Colorado,” said Currin. “But I will forever be a North Carolinian to some extent.”

In the days following the storm, Currin felt lost and utterly helpless. Still in Colorado, he found himself over 1,400 miles from home when he needed to be there the most. He decided to reconnect with a friend from the area.

Libby Rodenbough lives and works on a farm-slash-music venue in Spring Creek, North Carolina, a community of less than 700 just 10 miles south of Hot Springs. She’s a folk musician and fiddle player for the band Mipso, and released her most recent solo album “Between the Blades” on North Carolina’s own Sleepy Cat Records.

Currin saw a picture that Rodenbough posted on Instagram, and realized that she was living just down the road from his old house in Hot Springs. The two started catching up after losing contact for a few years.

“Libby is the real deal,” said Currin. “She’s an amazing, amazing human who, to me, represents so much of young Appalachian progressiveness, both as a human being and as a musician. I’m in the fan club.” A younger player in the North Carolina music scene, her contemporary take on traditional americana speaks to the intergenerational nature of Appalachian songwriting,

“I’m from here, but I didn’t grow up playing any kind of traditional music,” said Rodenbough. “And when I started playing with a band when I was in college, having that kind of reference point to string band and traditional music, it did help me grow a sense of identity that I didn’t have growing up – like I didn’t really think of myself as that southern, or certainly not Appalachian.”

Rodenbough remembers how she began to find her sense of herself through the music that surrounded her, coming to terms with her identity via songs of the past. “I started to feel more like, North Carolina is cool. We got something going on,” she said. “So it’s important to me because it helped me feel like I belong where I am, and want to stay.”

Rodenbough was born and raised in Greensboro, but has deep ties to the region. Her mom is from Black Mountain, a small town about 15 miles east of Asheville. Lying off of the Swannanoa River, the area was ravaged by floodwaters in Helene. With roads swept away in mudslides, the town’s administration estimated that at least $25 million was still needed for repairs as of February. 

“I think another thing that hangs over everything is the feeling of, like, this could happen again next year, or the year after,” said Rodenbough. “Nothing about the intensity of it means that it won’t happen again.” 

When Helene struck, Rodenbough found herself on tour with Asheville americana group The Dead Tongues. The band had just played in Boston the day after the storm, 900 miles away from the state. 

“A couple of the members of the band had loved ones they couldn’t get in touch with, ‘cause all the cell service was out,” said Rodenbough. “So we actually played a couple of shows after the storm had happened, but we were in such a weird headspace – so we just called it for the rest of the tour, hightailed it back and filled up our sprinter with supplies, and went and checked on our friends.”

After making it back home, Rodenbough got a message from an old friend. David Walker founded the blog New Commute, an independent music hub based in Charlotte. He wanted to find a way to help, and he knew that Libby would be the person to ask.

“A lot of people I know in North Carolina and elsewhere, it was like watching the news and just feeling really jittery and helpless and having a lot of nervous energy,” said Rodenbough. “And [Walker] was like, ‘What can we do? I’m just spitballing. Should we try to get some people to put up unreleased tracks on Bandcamp, try to do a little fundraiser?’”

Rodenbough and Walker got to work, recruiting friends and local musicians that they thought might be interested in contributing. “That’s how it started,” said Rodenbough. “And then there were some people we wanted to contact and we were like, ‘Ah, but we don’t have a personal number for them.’” 

Currin and Rodenbough had already reconnected, so Libby saw an opportunity. They brought him on board, using his vast web of music industry connections to their advantage.

“It really happened fast,” said Rodenbough. “We probably contacted 20 friends and then it snowballed in all sorts of different directions. And before we knew it, we had actually managers and musicians reaching out to us, asking to contribute, and the word has spread really fast.”

Currin was all in, and he immediately started calling in favors. “I don’t even know if we talked about it, I think I just started asking friends, including Dave Hartley from The War on Drugs,” said Currin. “So we started talking, and then I realized that if Dave and those guys could contribute, then there were probably a lot of other people that would be willing to contribute.”

The compilation is titled “Cardinals at the Window,” and was made exclusively available on music streaming site Bandcamp in early October for a minimum donation of $10. All proceeds from the album are being donated to local flood relief organizations.

“Cardinals at the Window – named for an expression we’ve all heard in Appalachia, meaning that there’s a little luck on the way,” wrote Currin on Bandcamp, “is our modest attempt to help the best we can, to do what we might to help restore some small piece of a place so many of us love so much.” Several contributors wrote lengthy odes to their roots in the area, all whilst processing the grief that Helene had stricken upon their home. 

“It just seemed like a really easy way to try and help,” said Currin. “I certainly felt powerless from afar, there’s nothing I could do to get my hands dirty and actually try to rescue someone, or do construction, or do demolition. It wasn’t possible for me. So when this opportunity came up, I was really excited by it.”

Although it was a massive project, Currin feels as if it’s the least that he could have done. “So much of our power as people, it kind of depends on us helping each other, and I think that’s only going to increase,” said Currin. “This seemed like a really easy way for three people working very hard for a few days to do that.” 

The compilation grew bigger than anyone could have expected it to, with musicians from every corner of the music industry their own recordings. Featured artists include psychedelic jam band Phish, legendary americana singer-songwriter Gillian Welch and indie folk group Fleet Foxes.

“I think we thought at one point, like, 25 tracks would be super ambitious, and then 50 tracks would be incredible. I think it’s 126.” Currin was close – it’s 136 tracks long, clocking in at ten hours of music. However, there’s one song that holds a special significance to the compilation.

“There was a variety of types of contributions, some of them were demos and unreleased stuff that people already had just sitting around, you know,” said Rodenbough. “But then there were things like [MJ Lenderman’s “Pianos”] that were kind of put together for the moment. It’s a very diverse collection, but there’s a lot of the bands I love are on it. So I was excited just as a fan, because I got to hear some new things from people I love.”

MJ Lenderman is an Asheville-born singer-songwriter, originally finding his footing in the city’s music scene as the lead guitarist for the alternative rock band Wednesday. In September, he released “Manning Fireworks,” his fourth solo album that was recorded at Asheville’s own Drop of Sun Studios with a backing band of local musicians. The album was Lenderman’s commercial breakthrough, leading to a headlining North American tour and praise from critical outlets across the board.

“It’s really easy to watch the national news, and see someone interviewed who’s pretty poor, and maybe uneducated,” said Currin. “You know, it fits the stereotypes of being a Southerner, from the mountains, or being a hillbilly. I mean, first of all – f*ck that. That person’s life experiences are just as valid as anyone else’s. But [Lenderman] can represent a reminder that incredible, incredible culture has come out of these places that maybe aren’t always thought of that way, and should be thought of that way.”

Lenderman contributed a previously unheard track to the compilation, “Pianos,” recorded in the days following Helene with producer Brad Cook. In the wake of both Helene and Lenderman’s newfound success, the song gained a new significance as a testament to a young artist’s deep reverence for his hometown – written in the aftermath of an unmeasurable tragedy. 

That being said, Lenderman is only one player in a new school of young, exciting Asheville artists planting their roots in the city’s scene. Many of them are re-interpreting the country, folk and alternative rock music of their youth, and spinning it into something fresh, lyrical and uniquely Appalachian. Indigo de Souza, Colin Miller, and Lenderman’s Wednesday bandmate Karly Hartzman stand at the forefront of the scene with him, among other emerging artists.

Although the traditional folk of Appalachia looks a bit different in 2025, the region’s new guard is keeping the spirit alive in their songcraft. “I think folk music at its core is people communicating an idea about the world and how they live in it,” said Currin. “I mean, what are Jake and Karly’s songs, if not songs about how two people see the world, and the way they live in it? I think that that integrity, or that sort of honesty, translates to the music that a lot of folks there make.”

There’s just one glaring issue – It’s becoming more expensive to live in Asheville by the year. In April 2017, an average home in the city went for just over $276,000 – as of April 2025, that figure had skyrocketed to $484,000. A large portion of the city’s creative scene has now taken up residence elsewhere.

“I think what you’re seeing in Asheville is something that you’ve seen in a lot of American cities in the past quarter-century, really,” said Currin. “It’s just that these sort of small to midsize American cities are cheap enough to support art on the fringes that doesn’t make a lot of money, at least for a long time. And then slowly, and in some cases not so slowly, people with a lot more money move in, and in those places, the people get run out because they can’t afford it.”

Although Asheville remains a hub for an exciting arts scene, the future of its creative community is entirely unclear. “I would say there’s a lot of energy there, but I do think the city is kind of facing a crossroads you see in so many places,” said Currin. “Which is: how do we keep the energy of our young creative folks available, while also becoming a more expensive place to live?”

The hurricane didn’t make things easier for the area’s already-troubled housing market. “It exacerbates the things that are messed up already, and it makes it harder for everybody who is already having a hard time,” said Rodenbough. “That’s been the longer-lasting and sad thing to witness. You know, rent was already pretty high around here, and then a lot of people, especially people in more vulnerable work situations, were out of jobs or are still out of jobs.”

Despite it all, the artistic community that does still call western North Carolina home banded together for mutual relief in the wake of Helene. Although the music and arts scene has become fragmented and decentralized in recent years, it served as a reminder of the resilience that seems to be intrinsic among mountain folk. 

“It’s definitely brought people together in the creative world, and just in general,” said Rodenbough. “And I think part of it was like doing a bunch of physical labor together, ‘cause us white-gloved artsy types don’t always have that experience. Like, a lot of artistic work is kind of solitary. It doesn’t need to be, but it is that way a lot of time.” 

In the days following the storm, Rodenbough was part of a team clean-up initiative in Marshall, a small town in Madison County that was struck by flash flooding of the French Broad River. Water levels reached up to 27 feet, sweeping away everything in its path and ravaging the historic downtown district.

“In downtown Marshall, all the buildings were full of muck and needed to be just cleared, just a lot of unskilled labor was needed at the beginning,” said Rodenbough. “So basically just everybody around – and a lot of volunteers from outside the area – were all just down there every day, shoveling muck and then pulling out flooring and drywall.”

It was the closest Rodenbough had ever felt to her community. “Not in any way to diminish how messed up it was, that was a really beautiful opportunity that came out of it,” she said. “And I know a lot of people I talked to were having the same thought: like, how do you create openings for this kind of thing that aren’t born out of a disaster?”

The night before Media Milwaukee’s interview with Rodenbough, she had gone to a “crankie” show in the area – a moving panoramic illustration, displayed on a scroll and accompanied by music. 

“This had all this original music written for a big choir, like probably 20 people singing, and a string quartet. It was really beautiful, and it was all about the flood, and grief,” said Rodenbough. “I don’t even know what the thesis would be. I was going to say making sense of grief, but it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like, ‘Let’s think it through.’ It was just like, ‘Let’s hold grief and hold it in the same room together for a little while.’” 

It served as a testament to her that communities can process their collective trauma together, channeling it into something tragic, yet symbolic of their collective resilience. “Similarly to working together in the muck, I wouldn’t have wished that upon anybody,” said Rodenbough. “I wouldn’t have wished the storm upon anybody, but there is always the chance that great art comes out of suffering and grief, and I think that is happening here.”

If there’s anything that the album’s organizers want Cardinals at the Window to stand for, they want it to serve as a reminder of the resilience of their region and the people who call it home. Both the music on the album and the music that comes out of their state speak volumes to that idea.

“There’s just such riches creatively among regular people living their lives, and that’s true in urban places and rural places,” said Rodenbough. “I’m partial to the landscape out here, and I’m partial to how living in a remote place and living further apart gives people’s minds a little space – and it has the potential to ground whatever art they make in something a little more eternal and less trendy.”

Currin asks listeners not to forget about Appalachia. The region has proved that they have something to say. “You know, quote-unquote ‘poor’ places can produce amazing art, and when we talk about art, we should not just be talking about New York and Los Angeles,” said Currin. “We should be talking about Eau Claire, Wisconsin, or Asheville, North Carolina, or Akron, Ohio. That it exists in many places and that it especially exists, I think, in the mountains of North Carolina.”

Although Rodenbough is newer to the area, nothing feels more like home for an artist like herself. “I find that just being out here, that I think that everybody would find that in the little cracks and interstitial parts of every state and country,” said Rodenbough. “That’s my suspicion.”

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This story is part of a semester-long investigative reporting project into the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. It was created by an advanced reporting class in the Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies program at UW-Milwaukee. Other stories from the project are available here.

This work was made possible through the support of MPC Endowment Ltd., the philanthropic affiliate of the Milwaukee Press Club.