Donna Ray Norton Melanie Rice Penland A seventh-generation ballad singer, storyteller, and claw-hammer banjo player, Sheila Kay Adams was born and raised in the Sodom Laurel community of Madison County, North Carolina, where she learned to sing from her great aunt and other notable singers. Her devotion to preserving and perpetuating her heritage is both […]
For over forty years, Joe Bruchac has been creating literature and music that reflect his indigenous heritage and traditions. He is a proud Nulhegan Abenaki citizen and respected elder among his people. Although his American Indian heritage is only one part of an ethnic background that includes Slovak and English blood, those Native roots are the […]
John Roberts has been singing English folk songs since the early 1960s, when he joined a local folk club in his native Worcestershire. In America since 1968, he joined with Tony Barrand to form a duo which has lasted ever since. Singing in unaccompanied harmony, or with concertina or banjo, their entertaining style has delighted […]
Simon Hamer Simon Harmer has been teaching and performing a range of step-dance styles for over 30 years. Starting with English clog steps, he has over the years expanded his repertoire to include steps and styles from Appalachian clogging; from Quebec, Ontario, and particularly Cape Breton Island; from southern England, particularly Sussex and Hampshire, including […]
Frank Lee and Allie Burbrink are a vocal-driven old-time duo from western North Carolina. They showcase Frank's signature clawhammer-banjo sound on steel-string and nylon-string banjos. Or some slide guitar and harmonica blues pieces. Then there’s Maybelle Carter-inspired country guitar, or cross-tuned old-time fiddling à la Fiddlin' John Carson. And Frank & Allie's voices in harmony tying it all […]
Steeped in traditional music from both sides of the color line, Scott Ainslie is a renowned acoustic blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter, with expertise in Piedmont and Delta Blues as well as Southern Appalachian fiddle and banjo traditions. Armed with a variety of instruments—vintage guitars; a fretless gourd banjo; a one-string diddley bow (aka cigar […]
Andy Cohen is a blues musician who plays, for the most part, Southeastern music that used to be found on 78’s, including blues, gospel, country dance music, fiddle tunes, monologues, ballads, classic rags, ditties, country songs, and boogies. As well as a virtuoso finger-style guitarist, he is also an enthusiastic proponent of the dolceola, a […]
Windborne is a group of vocal chameleons who specialize in close harmony singing, shifting effortlessly between drastically different styles of traditional music within the same concert. Their musical knowledge spans many continents and cultures, but they remain deeply rooted in American folk-singing traditions. Lynn Mahoney Rowan, Will Thomas Rowan, Lauren Breunig, and Jeremy Carter-Gordon share […]
Emma O’Sullivan hails from Connemara, Co. Galway, in the West of Ireland. An All-Ireland Champion, she has toured the globe with many of the top names in traditional Irish music. She is an experienced workshop facilitator and has spent over ten years sharing this beautiful tradition, both as a performer and through her Sean Nós […]
John Kirk & Trish Miller present fiery fiddle tunes, folksongs, and fancy footwork to audiences of all ages. John’s lyric voice, good sense of humor, and versatile instrumental skills — fiddle, mandolin, and several other instruments—have earned him widespread recognition in folk and traditional music circles. Trish is best known for her clogging, guitar, and banjo. […]
Bourque Émissaires are Benoit Bourqua and Antoine Pigeon-Bourque. Benoit is a versatile artist overflowing with energy and a contagious joie de vivre, who has been winning the public over more than 30 years. Charismatic, exuberant, warm, funny, limber, the band’s sparkplug are a few words to describe him. Antoine started playing piano at the age […]
Documentary style video on traditional Mandinka music and the cultural world of Mandinka traditional oral historian-musicians known as “griots.” Including: Kora duets, wooden-keyed xylophone and 3-string bass kora, women’s bell, drumming discussion and demonstration, dancing, kora teaching, and traditional story-telling. Forty-eight years ago, Alhaji Bai Konte brought the music of the kora (Mandinka harp) […]