Tyrone Cotton
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.
JEFFERSON HAMER
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.
Joe Troop
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.