David Menconi is a journalist in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he was 2019 Piedmont Laureate. He spent 34 years writing for daily newspapers, 28 of them at the Raleigh News & Observer. He holds a Master’s in journalism from the University of Texas and an English Bachelor of Arts from Southwestern University. He has written for Billboard, Rolling Stone, The New York Times and Spin while publishing four books, most recently “Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music, from Blind Boy Fuller and Doc Watson to Nina Simone and Superchunk” (2020, University of North Carolina Press).