Marshall Ballew is a singer/ songwriter, multi – instrumentalist, instructor, and music historian whose Appalachian roots laid the groundwork for his lifelong love of music in all its various forms and ages. Surrounded in his youth in the North Carolina mountains by the sounds of folk, old – time, and bluegrass, he took up the guitar at age 14 and began a stringman’s journey that would lead to study of the banjo, fiddle, dobro, Hawaiian guitar, tiple, oud, and bouzouki.