Tyrone Cotton’s earliest musical revelation was listening to the raspy, inspirational voice of his grandfather, the Reverend Cleveland Roosevelt Williams, at his childhood home in Louisville, KY. At a young age, Cotton began playing guitar along to the sounds of popular rock and blues artists. Overtime, he was influenced by Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, and Mississippi John Hurt, who intrigued Tyrone with his “ finger pickin’ and soft, wispy voice.”

Inspired by this wide variety of artists, Cotton developed a style of writing that blended soul, folk, blues, jazz, and rock n roll. He has become a staple in the Louisville music scene over the past 30 years, being well recognized for his stirring voice and lyrics.

Cotton has toured throughout the United States and Japan, with plans to continue performing in the US this year. He is currently working on releasing a new album he did with longtime collaborator and producer Ray Rizzo and producer Josh Kaufman, best known for his work with The National, Bob Weir, Bonny Light Horseman and Josh Ritter.

www.tyronecotton.com

A musical journeyman and a recalcitrant troubadour, Jefferson Hamer has spent the greater part of three decades searching for a song to sing. His Rocky Mountain years (1995-2008) saw hard touring and a good bit of living on the jam and bluegrass circuits, playing acoustic guitar, tenor banjo, and Telecaster in Single Malt Band, The Wayfarers, and Great American Taxi. Resettled in New York City, he immersed in traditional Irish music, playing regular guitar accompaniment and singing at the downtown sessions, resulting in a lasting collaboration with Eamon O'Leary as The Murphy Beds. Jefferson's original songwriting and lead guitar work is featured on his self-produced Alameda, and continues in collaboration with Boston-area collective Session Americana. Other collaborators include Anais Mitchell, partner on the BBC2 Folk Award winning Child Ballads, Kristin Andreassen of Nashville based JKLOL, Hannah Read, and Laura Cortese. Most recently, Jefferson's electric guitar and harmony vocals support Sarah Jarosz on her Grammy-nominated Blue Heron Suite.

Alongside his performance career, Jefferson works as a music educator, privately and at camps such as Miles of Music, Voiceworks, Sisters Song School, and Ashokan Center. A self-taught engineer and vintage microphone enthusiast, he recorded both Murphy Beds albums, The Brother Brothers' Some People I Know, and The Drunken Gaugers (feat. Kevin Crawford, Dylan Foley, and Patrick Doucey). In 2021 he mixed and mastered a compilation for the Orien Arts organization called "Real and Far Off Hymns, Vol. 1", as well as contributing his own arrangement of the folk classic "How Can I Keep From Singing." He is currently producing a new release for Ithaca-based songwriter Naomi Sommers.

www.jeffersonhamer.com

Ruby John is a Traditional Fiddler and a member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa Chippewa Indians from Northern Michigan. Ruby learned to fiddle the traditional way by ear, listening to and learning from experienced fiddlers while attending OFMA Jamborees (Old-Time Michigan Fiddlers Association), TC Celtic Sessions, Algomatrad Traditional Music and Dance camp (St. Joseph Island ON), Elder Youth Legacy Métis Collective and Bluegrass Festivals. Ruby has performed her traditional fiddling throughout the US and Canada and looks forward to sharing this music she loves with others.

A music therapist gone rogue, Kyshona wrote her first songs with her patients as an exercise in self reflection. She is known as a strong voice for the underdog. NPR Music is quoted as saying “Wherever she plants her feet she does so with righteous conviction and a strong sense of her own voice.”.

When she’s home, Kyshona devotes her time to helping others write their story through song; working with those experiencing incarceration, homelessness and struggling with mental health through her charitable organization, Your Song. Of her latest project, “Listen”, No Depression says,“This is protest music for a new generation, a musical treatment for social ills, a unique prescription that only works if you listen.”

Some of Kyshona’s latest collaborations on stage and in the studio include; Adia Victoria, Margo Price, Jason Isbell & T-Bone Burnett (You Was Born to Die), Margo Price (Help!, Hey Child) and Allison Russell (Newport Folk Fest: Once & Future Sounds ft. Chaka Khan).

www.kyshona.com

Photographer and bass player, Amanda Kowalski, is a West Virginia native who grew up playing Appalachian roots music. During her career as a touring bassist, Amanda worked with bands including Uncle Earl, Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck, and the Freight Hoppers. Additionally Amanda co-founded the Grammy-nominated band Della Mae with fiddler, Kimber Ludiker.

These days Amanda spends most of her time taking pictures and working on documentary films. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR.org, Discovery, National Geographic Online and others. In 2021 Amanda was a collaborator on the Emmy-winning short "Nightsongs."

When Amanda’s not behind a camera or a bass you can find her on a bike, in the woods, or both.

Photos: www.amandakowalskiphoto.com

Banjo player, singer, songwriter, percussive-dancer, choreographer and square-dance caller, Evie Ladin grew up steeped in traditional folk music/dance, and brings a contemporary vision to her compositions and choreography. Evie’s performances, recordings and teaching reconnect Appalachian music/dance with other African-Diaspora traditions, and have been heard from A Prairie Home Companion to Lincoln Center, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass to Celtic Connections, Brazil to Bali. Based in Oakland, CA, Evie tours with Keith Terry and the Evie Ladin Band; and has produced 9 CDs and two instructional DVDs. In the percussive dance world, she is Executive Director of the International Body Music Festival, directs the moving choir MoToR/dance, does educational outreach with Crosspulse, and is an ace freestyle flatfooter. In the trad world, Evie teaches clawhammer banjo and harmony singing at the infamous Freight & Salvage, online at Peghead Nation and numerous camps and events. She leads rowdy square dance parties, getting every body easily dancing. In the songwriter world, she just writes great songs, subtitling her own band “neo-trad kinetic folk." In 2019 she released two CDs, celebrating both of her musical sides: one totally trad fiddle/banjo duets with 17 different fiddlers, Riding the Rooster, and her fourth of adventurous originals, Caught On A Wire; followed quickly by a 2020 cover songs EP. A highly entertaining performer, Evie enjoys facilitating arts learning in diverse communities. “The best example I have seen of a Neo-Trad band's sound being authentically anchored in old time music but extending it into new and entertaining directions.” —Founder, Clifftop Appalachian Stringband Festival

www.evieladin.com

Shane Leonard is a record producer, musician, mix engineer, and songwriter who lives in Eau Claire, WI. Equally at home in an indie rock band as he is in an old time stringband, those who work with Shane (Mipso, Field Report, Rose Cousins, Stray Birds, Larry Campbell) know him as a studio/live swiss army knife, helping their sound to evolve past previous benchmarks. NPR and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) have praised his production with descriptors like "goosebumps inducing" (NPR Music), "a monster musician" (Justin Vernon) and "exquisite" (Paste Magazine). Anna Tivel, Humbird, J.E. Sunde and others have entrusted multiple albums to his care; they reside alongside multiple releases of his own music - the most recent being Strange Forms (2019).

www.shaneleonardmusic.com

Joe Troop is a multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. During his decade in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he formed the group Che Apalache with three of his students. The band’s second album, Rearrange My Heart, was produced by legendary genre-bender, banjoist Béla Fleck and received a GRAMMY nomination for Best Folk Album in 2020.

Working in a style dubbed “latingrass,” Joe melds music from the Appalachian foothills with traditional soundscapes from across Latin American. He composes wry and well-traveled acoustic music, sung in English and Spanish. Wrenching old-time music into the world of contemporary global politics, Joe creates spaces for sympathy, solidarity, and a little humor. His debut solo album, Borrowed Time featuring Charlie Hunter, Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn, Tim O’Brien and many more superb musicians was released in 2021 to rave reviews.

www.joetroop.com