YADKINVILLE, N.C. – The Yadkin Arts Council and Blue Ridge Music Center are partnering to welcome DaShawn & Wendy Hickman presents Sacred Steel + Murphy, Laurelyn, & Riley on Saturday, January 24 at 7:30 p.m. on the Willingham Theater stage at the Yadkin Cultural Arts Center in Yadkinville.

This concert is part of the 10th annual Sounds of the Mountains Concert Series. 

DaShawn & Wendy Hickman share their soulful sound putting their own spin on Sacred Steel, a blues-gospel tradition that started in the Pentecostal-Holiness churches in the 1930s. Hailing from Mount Airy, DaShawn is one of today’s foremost players of Sacred Steel. He grew up hearing the pedal steel in the tiny House of God church his family attended, and listening to his mother play lap steel at home. DaShawn picked up the instrument at the age of five, and in his teens, formed a group with three of his cousins that found fame as The Allen Boys, North Carolina’s only touring Sacred Steel band. More recently DaShawn toured with Cirque de Soleil, playing pedal steel in the country music band and he was the pedal steel player in Steve Ray Ladson’s band that made the finals of this fall’s America’s Got Talent TV Show. In 2023, he was inducted into the Sacred Steel Hall of Fame. Vocalist Wendy Hickman channels artists including Anita Baker and India Arie with a splash of Tina Turner’s raspiness.

The trio Murphy, Laurelyn, & Riley will open the show that evening. Murphy Campbell a rising young banjoist who recently released her self titled debut EP. Laurelyn Dossett is an award winning singer-songwriter whose songs have been covered by Levon Helm, Rhiannon Giddens, and others. She has performed with the Americana band Polecat Creek and with iconic traditional musicians like Alice Gerrard and Dirk Powell. Riley Baugus, an old-time banjo player and luthier, appeared in the movie Cold Mountain and was featured in the Down the Mountain music tour.

Tickets & Additional Information

10^th Annual “Sounds of the Mountains Series” in partnership with the Blue Ridge Music Center

The “Sounds of the Mountains” is part of the Blue Ridge Music Center’s On the Road series of concerts and events hosted throughout the year in partnership with regional arts and cultural organizations at the partners locations or virtually.

What & When:  DaShawn & Wendy Hickman presenting Sacred Steel with Murphy, Laurelyn, & Riley, January 24, 2026  @ 7:30pm / $25

Tickets: www.yadkinarts.org or at the Box Office from 10 a.m.- 4 p.m., Monday-Friday. 

Where: Willingham Theater (located in the Yadkin Cultural Arts Center) 226 E. Main St., Yadkinville, NC 27055

About the Yadkin Arts Council

The Yadkin Arts Council, a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, has a mission to transform the lives in our community through the arts by offering opportunities to encounter, create. We believe art is transformational.  Arts open minds, frees imagination, and helps people see the world from different perspectives.

About the Blue Ridge Music Center

The Blue Ridge Music Center, located at milepost 213 on the Blue Ridge Parkway, near Galax, Va., celebrates the music and musicians of the mountains. The Music Center is a national park facility, a major attraction along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and a venue partner of The Crooked Road: Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail and Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina. The Blue Ridge Parkway/National Park Service maintains and operates the facility, and staffs the Music Center Visitor/Interpretive Center. The programs are managed, coordinated, promoted, and produced by the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, a nonprofit partner organization. For more information, visit BlueRidgeMusicCenter.org.

About the Willingham Theater

Opened in December 2012, the Willingham Theater, the centerpiece of the Yadkin Cultural Arts Center, is an architecturally beautiful and wonderfully intimate 193-seat performing arts theater.

*This Project was supported by the N.C. Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural & Cultural Resources. www.NCArts.org.*

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