Considered “the rocking professor” at UNC Chapel HiIll, this musician shows the kids how its done on her new album, Hold the Spark
by David Menconi

You could say Dr. Florence Dore leads a double life, split between professor and rock musician — except those two pursuits are so interconnected, they’re happening simultaneously all the time. For example, consider “Twelve Great Minds (Department Meeting),” a stomp-along rocker on Dore’s fine new album, Hold the Spark. The lyrics read like ones you might scrawl on a notepad during a particularly annoying work meeting.

There should be a class on petty
insignificant battles

There should be a class on what to
do when the ref throws a flag

There should be a way to know this
is not revolution

There should be a class on what to
do to not be a drag…  

“On the road, people really dig that one,” Dore says. “Anybody who has had a job where you have to cope with the stupidest thing imaginable can relate to it.”

At this point, Dore pauses to laugh before adding a qualifier. “But I do want to say,” she deadpans, “that similarities to any person living or dead are purely coincidental.”

Dore has been “the rocking professor” in the English department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 2010, teaching classes in literature and songwriting. Along with releasing multiple books and albums (three of each), she has toured the world and organized academic conferences about music and writing.

Organizing cool things might be her super power. When the pandemic shutdown hit in 2020, Dore used her connections to spearhead a benefit album. Cover Charge: NC Artists Go Under Cover to Benefit Cat’s Cradle featured Superchunk, Chatham County Line and other local acts, and it hit No. 1 on Billboard magazine’s compilation chart, even though it was a digital-only release on the Bandcamp website.

Teaching is an integral part of Dore’s artistic life, not least because it expands her network of collaborators. She regularly has students like Mipso fiddler Libby Rodenbough play on her albums. And Dore’s May 7 album-release show at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro will feature various students as opening acts and collaborators, including the all-female band Juniper and folk-rock group Davie Circle, with folk musician Bill Moore as master of ceremonies. Other students will join Dore for cameos during her headlining set. 

“Our band is super excited to play her show,” says Warner Vaughan, a senior psychology major from High Point who plays in Juniper. “She really is a wonderful professor and musician, in my opinion a real badass who has done it all. I take a lot of inspiration from her example.” 

Hold the Spark should appeal to anyone who wishes Tom Petty was still around to make records. Equal parts rocking pop tune-craft and Southern soulful vibes, it’s classic rock with roots in the pre-Nirvana alternative rock that made North Carolina a key outpost on the underground circuit.

Part of that comes from Dore’s drummer (and husband) Will Rigby, who’s a member of Winston-Salem new-wave legends The dB’s. On Dore’s album, Rigby is part of an all-star studio cast that includes former Steve Earle guitarist Chris Masterson and R.E.M.’s original co-producers, Don Dixon and Mitch Easter (a North Carolina Music Hall of Famer who contributes guitar here).

“Twelve Great Minds” aside, the majority of this album’s 12 songs are less autobiographical than invented. “Worst Mistake” is sung by a protagonist looking back on a lifetime of regret for roads not taken. “Can’t Come Down” and the rollicking album opener “Sunset Road” were inspired by Dore’s travels through America’s off-the-beaten-path districts, from the viewpoint of imagined characters there. 

“This record reflects a certain irreverence that comes with getting older, because I got tired of talking about myself,” Dore says. “I wrote a lot of songs, finished 40 and started a lot more than that. I really worked on getting better from a musical point of view, and also to create characters that have nothing to do with me. Not that there isn’t any personal stuff. Hold the Spark is the feeling of contemplating your child growing up and moving on.”

Dore’s own music occasionally comes up during classroom discussion, but mostly as an example of how one might solve songwriting problems (though it does give her credibility with students). At the beginning of her semester in Dore’s songwriting class last year, for example, Vaughan was struggling with writer’s block and asked Dore for advice on overcoming it.

“She told me something that was super funny in the moment, but I remember it now as very helpful,” Vaughan says. “She told me straight to my face, I don’t believe in writer’s block. If you don’t think you can write, just sit down and write something, even if it’s just sentences, phrases, words. Anything to get creative juices flowing. You might feel you have nothing to say, but you do. You just have to reach down far enough to find it. It was good advice.” 

This article originally appeared in the May 2026 issue of WALTER magazine.