The Freight Hoppers

The Freight Hoppers, led by the distinctive vocals of Cary Fridley (who is also a solo artist), came together in the mid-'90s, inspired by 1920s and 1930s old-time music. The group's roots lie in the early '90s, when banjo player and Atlanta native Frank Lee was playing for the Great Smokey Mountain Railway in Bryson City, NC. He called upon his friend, fiddler David Bass, a Cleveland native who had been busking in N.Y.C. and New Orleans, to come to Bryson City to help him entertain disembarking passengers. Vocalist/guitarist Cary Fridley, a Kentucky native, was teaching schoo...