CREATORS
found MAGIC For Shannon Whitworth, the muse lives and breathes in the mountains of Brevard by WILEY CASH photography by MALLORY CASH
“M
y art is how I see the world,” says artist and singer-songwriter Shannon Whitworth. “And my music is how I hear it.” Just outside of Brevard, Whitworth is walking across the expanse of grass between her barn studio and the renovated farmhouse she shares with her husband, Woody Platt of the Grammy Award-winning Steep Canyon Rangers, and their young son. The late afternoon is rainy and cool. In the distance, mist hangs over the mountains like a gray, gossamer blanket. In other places across the South, spring has begun to reveal itself, but here in the mountains,
winter is still hanging on. Whitworth didn’t always live in the mountains that have become so synonymous with her music and art. She was born into a bustling home with two older brothers in Fairfax, Virgnia. By the time she reached high school, her restless nature prompted her to head south to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, where she spent summers with her Grandma Nancy, an Old South dame who owned a ladies’ clothing boutique and lived in a lamplit home where every room had a clock radio playing martini music. The soundtrack to Whitworth’s summers in Hilton Head were comprised of Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, and the clink of ice in Grandma Nancy’s cocktail The Art & Soul of Raleigh | 43
