‘Hold the Spark’: Live and Local with Florence Dore!

‘Hold the Spark’: Live and Local with Florence Dore!

From Chapelboro.com by Chapelboro.com

April 27, 2026 · 29 min

About this episode

Local musician Florence Dore discusses her new album 'Hold the Spark' and her approach to songwriting.

Local musician Florence Dore stopped by Live & Local this week, ahead of the May 1 release of her new album, “Hold the Spark.” Visit FlorenceDoreMusic.com. “You’re paying attention to the world in a different way, if you’re a songwriter,” Dore says. “And that’s one of our jobs, I think – to get people to attend to these dimensions of life that they might not otherwise notice.” Florence Dore knows all about songwriting: she’s an accomplished one herself, with a career going back three decades, and she also teaches songwriting (along with literature) at UNC. Her sophomore album “Highways and Rocketships” got named Best Americana Album of 2022 by Lonesome Highway Magazine in 2022, and for the follow-up she penned a wide variety of stellar tracks – both autobiographical (the title track) and fictional (“Sunset Road”), ranging from sincere emotion (“Can’t Come Down”) to biting comic acidity (“Twelve Great Minds [Department Meeting]”). “I wrote about 30 or 40 songs in a couple of years for this record – (and) I stopped wanting to write songs about myself, (because) how many things can you write about yourself?” she says with a laugh. “So I stopped turning inward…

People in this episode

Guest: Florence Dore

Topics covered

  • songwriting
  • music
  • local artists
  • literature
  • album release

Keywords

  • Florence Dore
  • Hold the Spark
  • songwriting
  • UNC
  • music

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: UNC, Lonesome Highway Magazine

Books & works: Hold the Spark, Highways and Rocketships

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