Bayla Davis, banjo

Meet Bayla

Bayla appears on Show 447 and is featured in From the Top’s Where Music Lives film series.

Bayla Davis (banjo), 15, is a Traditional Appalachian vocalist and multi-instrumentalist from Leicester, North Carolina. At 6-years-old, she started in the Junior Appalachian Musicians Program (JAM) in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Bayla has been playing clawhammer banjo and singing for almost a decade and spends much of her time playing as a member in her siblings’ Old-Time band, Newfound Gap. She has played on the main stage at Bela Fleck’s Blue Ridge Banjo Camp, the Kruger Brother’s Academy Stage, the Cabin Stage at Merlefest, Woodsongs, the IBMA’S Youth Stage and Kids on Bluegrass, Appalachia Sessions, among others. She also won 1st Place in the Galax, Virginia “Old Fiddlers’ Convention” in Clawhammer Banjo, as well as Mt. Airy Fiddlers Convention, Appalachian State Fiddlers Convention, the SC Fiddlers Convention and many more. This year, she recorded tracks for the Fine-Tuned album, a mentorship and collaboration-based project aimed at professional development for emerging artists playing traditional music in Western North Carolina. For the last five years, she has been a scholarship student at the Academy for the Arts in Asheville studying with Jerry Sutton, Bryan McDowell, and Josh Goforth. She plans on attending Berklee College of Music with plans to teach and perform for future generations.