Top 10 Iconic Singers from Raleigh, North Carolina

Photo by Gabri Guerrero. Wikimedia Commons.

Top 10 Iconic Singers from Raleigh, North Carolina

The U.S. state of North Carolina is known particularly for its history of old-time music. Many recordings were made in the early 20th century by folk song collector Bascom Lamar Lunsford.

Influential North Carolina country musicians like the North Carolina Ramblers and Al Hopkins helped solidify the sound of country music in the late 1920s, while influential bluegrass musicians such as Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson came from North Carolina. Here is a list of the Top 10 Iconic Singers from Raleigh, North Carolina.

1. Clay Aiken

Photo by Gage Skidmore. Wikimedia Commons.

Clayton Holmes Aiken is an American singer, television personality, actor, Democratic political candidate and activist. Aiken finished second place on the second season of American Idol in 2003, and his debut album, Measure of a Man, went multi-platinum.

He released four more albums on the RCA label, Merry Christmas with Love (2004), A Thousand Different Ways (2006), the Christmas EP All is Well (2006), and On My Way Here (2008). Since then he has released two more albums, both with Decca Records: Tried and True (2010) and Steadfast (2012).

2. Jimmy Robins

James Michael Robbins is a country music Award-winning American songwriter and producer. In addition to having penned ten number-one singles, he won a CMA Triple Play Award in 2014 for having three #1 songs in a twelve-month period as well as winning the ASCAP country song of the year for Thomas Rhett’s It Goes Like This.

His songs “We Were Us”, performed by Keith Urban and Miranda Lambert, won the Musical Event of the Year award at the 2014 CMA Awards, the CMA song of the year in 2020 for “The Bones” by Maren Morris and CMA Musical Event of The Year award for his cowritten and coproduced “Half Of My Hometown” by Kelsea Ballerini.

3. Kate Rhudy

Kate Rhudy is an American folk-pop and country singer-songwriter, musician, and recording artist. Trained as a classical violinist, she played in multiple local bands in Boone, North Carolina as a fiddler before moving to Nashville to further pursue a career in music.

She later moved to back to her hometown, Raleigh, and began performing as a solo artist. In 2017, she released her debut album, Rock N’ Roll Ain’t For Me. In 2022, she released her second album, ”Dream Rooms” which she debuted at the Raleigh Rose Garden selling out her show.

4. Randy Jones

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Randy Jones is an American disco and pop singer and best known as the cowboy from Village People from 1977 to 1980, and again from 1987 until 1990. In 2017, he released “Hard Times”, the first single from the album, Still Makin’ Noise.

The single reached number 42 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart, and was the first chart placement from any member of the Village People as a solo artist.

5. Edgar Allen Floe

Daryl Sams, known professionally as Edgar Allen Floe is a hip hop artist from North Carolina and a member of Justus League and The Undefined. His name is a play on words of the name of the famous writer, Edgar Allan Poe.

Floe’s early ambition in hip hop was to become a DJ rather than an MC, but hearing his uncle playing records by the likes of Rakim and Ice Cube led to Floe writing his first lyrics at the age of 14. He has released one EP, True Links (2005) and two mixtapes, Floe Almighty (2006).

6. Priscilla Block

Priscilla Block is an American country music singer–songwriter. Upon graduating high school, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue a career in the country industry. In 2020, Block wrote and recorded a song that appeared on her Tik Tok account. It subsequently went viral.

That song, “Just About Over You”, was heard by Nashville music executives and helped her secure a contract with Mercury Nashville. Released as a single, “Just About Over You” became a charting song on the American country chart in 2021.

7. Mike Cornell

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Michael “Mike” Collier Connell is an American musician best known as the leader, guitarist and primary songwriter of The Connells, an American band from Raleigh, North Carolina. They play a guitar-oriented, melodic jangle pop type of rock music with introspective lyrics that reflect themes and history of the American South.

The Connells began to come together as a group in the spring of 1984. Mike was in his second year of law school and his brother David in his last semester of college, both at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The brothers, David playing bass and Mike on guitar, rented a practice space and began working up several of Mike’s songs with a friend, John Schultz playing drums.

8. Lauren Kennedy

Lauren Kennedy is an American actress and singer who has performed numerous times on Broadway. She is now the producing artistic director of Theatre Raleigh in her home state of North Carolina.

Kennedy starred in the musical Vanities at the Pasadena Playhouse, in California from August to September 2008. She then followed the musical to its Off-Broadway venue Second Stage Theatre. Lauren is the artistic director of Theatre Raleigh, a theatre company in Raleigh, North Carolina.

9. Mic Murphy

Michael Austin “Mic” Murphy is an American musician, lead singer of the successful 1980s synth R&B duo the System. He is well known for singing the group’s biggest hit, “Don’t Disturb This Groove,” a 1987 US #4 Pop and #1 R&B hit. Murphy was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, but he moved to Queens, New York at an early age.

As a young musician, he was an early advocate of MIDI music technology. Murphy was road manager for the band Kleeer in the early 1980s, and through them he met his future System bandmate, David Frank. The two joined forces and made an immediate impact with their first album as the System.

10. Doug Aldrich

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Doug Aldrich is an American hard rock guitarist. He founded the band Burning Rain with Keith St. John in 1998 and has played with Whitesnake, Dio, Lion, Hurricane, House of Lords, Bad Moon Rising and Revolution Saints.

He is currently a member of The Dead Daisies. He has also released several solo albums. Doug toured with former Deep Purple bassist and vocalist Glenn Hughes’ band in 2015. It was announced in early 2016 that he would be replacing Richard Fortus as guitarist of The Dead Daisies.