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Mama & The Ruckus singer excited for MerleFest debut

Melissa McKinney (right) and her daughter, who performs under the name McKinney, are members of the five-piece band Mama & The Ruckus. They'll take part in MerleFest's annual band contest Saturday. Image courtesy of MerleFest.

Melissa McKinney (right) and her daughter, who performs under the name McKinney, are members of the five-piece band Mama & The Ruckus. They'll take part in MerleFest's annual band contest Saturday. Image courtesy of MerleFest.

The annual MerleFest music festival kicks off in Wilkes County Thursday with a lineup that includes some who are used to the limelight, and many who aren’t.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member Bonnie Raitt is Friday night’s headliner. And in the audience will be a blues singer who considers her a role model.

Melissa McKinney has always wanted to be on stage at MerleFest, and this year she’s getting her chance. Her five-piece band, Mama & The Ruckus, will be one of eight actscompeting in the festival’s annual band contest.

“We are based out of Asheville, so we’re extra excited to be a part of it this year," she says. "Because any chance that we have to showcase Asheville in a positive light after what we’ve been through just feels really special, and it’s just a real honor.”

Although she’s never played MerleFest before, her daughter, a bassist in the band, has. As a child, she played on the Little Pickers stage.

Other notable bands performing this year include Grammy-winning trio I’m With Her and North Carolina-based The Avett Brothers. 

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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