Larry & Joe with Calabash - March 14 at Woodbine Chamber

Larry & Joe were destined to make music together. 

Larry Bellorín hails from Monagas, Venezuela, and is a legend of Llanera music. Joe Troop is from North Carolina and is a GRAMMY-nominated bluegrass and oldtime musician. Larry was forced into exile and is an asylum seeker in North Carolina. Joe, after a decade in South America, got stranded back in his stomping grounds in the pandemic. Larry worked construction to make ends meet. Joe's acclaimed "latingrass" band Che Apalache was forced into hiatus, and he shifted into action working with asylum-seeking migrants. Then Larry met Joe.

Currently based in the Triangle of North Carolina, both men are versatile multi-instrumentalists and singer-songwriters on a mission to show that music has no borders. As a duo, they perform a fusion of Venezuelan and Appalachian folk music on harp, banjo, cuatro, fiddle, maracas, guitar, upright bass, and whatever else they decide to throw in the van. The program they offer features a distinct blend of their musical inheritances and traditions as well as storytelling about the ways that music and social movements coalesce.

Calabash is a music and cultural collective that interprets traditional West African music with both indigenous and Western instrumentation. The group's roots date back to the early 90s, when members of the group came together to study West African drum traditions. Since then, Calabash members have been central in the local world music scene, in groups such as Patikele, Afrophysicists, and Yapa. This deep appreciation of cultural context informs both approach and aesthetic.  Calabash members honor their African teachers and the cultures from which these genres emerged, while weaving creative spins in arrangement.  Calabash is Yahya Johnson (Kamalengnoni, an African harp), Steve Loomis (bass), Joe Watts (guitar), Peter Jones (drum kit), Zach Fry (African percussion) and Angela Scharfenberger (African xylophone).