To help usher in the holiday season, the Stanly County Concert Association is bringing two musicians to the area for its fourth and final concert of the year Saturday at the Stanly County Agri-Civic Center.

Both performers, who will be presenting a show titled Music City Christmas, hail from legendary musical families synonymous with the “Nashville sound” that originated around the mid-1950s. Pianist Jason Coleman is the grandson of Floyd Cramer while guitarist Meagan Taylor is the niece of Chet Atkins.

To people who might not be familiar, Nashville sound is the name given to a subgenre of American country music that evolved from traditional honky tonk music into something resembling traditional pop, according to Coleman.

“Instead of the fiddles and steel guitars and banjos, country music became a little bit more sophisticated with the piano and with background singers and strings. And so the Nashville sound is this sound of what country music became on sort of a pop sound and it was Chet Atkins and Floyd Cramer who were at the very heart of making that happen.”

The upcoming concert will be a way for Coleman and Taylor to honor their legendary forbears while also showcasing their own interpretation of what Nashville sounds means to them.

“We call the concert a Music City Christmas because we bring the classic Nashville country style of my grandfather and Taylor’s uncle,” Coleman said. “We bring their signature style of piano and guitar to some of their classic songs but also, since it is the Christmas season, to a lot of our favorite Christmas songs as well.”

The concert will also include some multimedia aspects including family photos of Cramer and Atkins along with videos of Coleman and Taylor playing alongside their legendary forerunners.

“We actually incorporate those to play some video duets that bridge the generations…to help their music come alive not just through how we play it but also playing along with them as well,” Coleman said.

This will be the duo’s second time performing in Stanly County as they were last here in 2019 for their Nashville Legacy concert, which was popular.

“The people really loved them and asked them to come back,” said Charlotte Maness, president of the association, noting the duo was slated to perform last year before the pandemic hit.

“We’re very excited about them coming and I think we’ll have a really good audience” Maness added.

Coleman hopes the performance will be a chance for people to relax and get into the holiday spirit.

“We try to make the audience feel like they’re part of our family,” he said. “Especially with the Christmas concert, I think it’s a good chance for everyone to slow down and reminisce and just relax. That’s the feeling we want people to come away with: heartwarming music and music that makes people sit back and remember loved ones and old times.”

The concert should last about two hours with an intermission.

Tickets, which cost $20 for adults and $10 for students, can be purchased on SCCA’s website and are available in advance at the Agri-Civic Center or Starnes Jewelers.

As with the previous performances, while masks are not required, they are strongly encouraged by the association.