Cleveland County's rich musical heritage grew from European and African traditions that shaped country, bluegrass, blues, and gospel, echoing from front porches, country stores, textile mills and villages, family reunions, church sanctuaries, and annual festivals, and continuing into the present. Two native musicians and Country Music Hall of Fame inductees brought international attention to the county. Earl Scruggs, from the nearby Flint Hill community, pioneered and popularized a three-finger banjo picking style that helped create the distinctive bluegrass sound in the mid-1940s, and his "Scruggs style" set the standard for bluegrass banjo players. Don Gibson, a country music singer-songwriter from Shelby, helped shape the new Nashville sound in the late 1950s and, known as "The Sad Poet," wrote the country music standards "I Can't Stop Loving You," "Sweet Dreams," and "Oh Lonesome Me." The Earl Scruggs Center and Don Gibson Theatre celebrate the contributions these native sons made to American music and serve to inspire, educate, and sustain Cleveland County's important musical heritage. The North Carolina mountains and foothills were designated the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area in recognition of their natural beauty and living traditions of music, craft, agriculture, and Cherokee culture, and this location is part of a regional trail of distinctive heritage sites.