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Iona Fyfe Trio

Aberdeenshire folksinger, Iona Fyfe, has become one of Scotland’s finest singers, rooted deeply in the singing traditions of the North East of Scotland. In 2021, she became the first singer to win the coveted title of Musician of the Year at the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards. Iona is a fierce advocate for the official recognition of the Scots Language, leading a successful campaign to pressure Spotify into recognising Scots and add it to its list of languages. Honoured at the Scots Language Awards with the title of Speaker of the Year in 2021, Iona performs both folk and pop songs in the Scots language, remaining true to her rooting in tradition. Iona has featured in several publications including The Sunday Post, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Times. She won the title of Scots Singer of the Year at the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards in 2018 and was described as “one of the best Scotland has to offer.”  (Global-Music.de)

Big Richard

  What began as an all-female festival collab quickly morphed into a serious passion project driven by sisterhood, harmony and humor……along with the shared desire to rage fiddle tunes and smash the patriarchy. 

 

 Big Richard is a neo-acoustic super group made up of four well established Colorado musicians: Bonnie Sims on mandolin (Bonnie & Taylor Sims/Everybody Loves An Outlaw/Bonnie & the Clydes), Joy Adams on cello (Nathaniel Rateliff/Darol Anger/Half Pelican), Emma Rose on bass + guitar (Sound of Honey/Daniel Rodriguez/Whippoorwill) and Eve Panning on fiddle (Lonesome Days). 

 

Formed in late 2021, the band gained immediate notoriety for their charismatic stage presence and their vocal/instrumental prowess.  After selling out all of their club shows Big Richard quickly started confirming festival appearances across America.  2022 is sure to be a big year!!

Kentucky Sky Bluegrass Band

Kentucky Sky Bluegrass Band

 Randy Hackworth, Pocatello, ID, roots take him back to the hills of Eastern Kentucky. Although he has played in several bands and genres of music, his love and passion is for that Bluegrass sound. As a singer/songwriter and guitarist, it just seems to be the perfect fit.

Emily Frank, Idaho Falls, ID, was raised listening to nothing but bluegrass music, and it’s still the only music she listens to. She has played in several different bands. The current group is called “Kentucky Sky” where she contributes with acoustic bass and vocals, as well as writing songs. Emily says, “I love playing music with these guys and doing harmonies. Plus, I get to dress old style and wear hats.”

 Fred Frank, Idaho Falls, ID, has been in many Bluegrass bands over the years starting his Bluegrass career with the Stone Mountain Bluegrass Co. He has played banjo, mandolin, and guitar in different bands, but in Kentucky Sky he is on five string banjo and singing vocal harmonies. Fred says: “This in one of the most traditional groups I have been in, and I’m having a blast.”

 Chad Fadely, Kalispell, MT, is originally from Hot Springs, AR. Chad is the newest member of the band but has shared the stage with Fred and Emily many times over the years as a member of New South Fork. Chad has played in many bands from MT. and when not making his living playing mandolin, he’s selling guitars for Music Villa in Bozeman, MT.

 Both Randy and Emily also write a significant portion of the band’s songs in a traditional Bluegrass style. This makes for a refreshing, yet familiar sound the band offers.

Rupert Wates – August 3

Rupert Wates was born in London and studied at Oxford University. He has been a full time songwriter since the late 1990s, when he signed a publishing contract with Eaton Music Limited.  In London he worked with some of the best performers in the city.  Moving in 2001 to Paris, Wates formed his own quartet and began playing live regularly. In fall 2006 he came to the US. He is now based in New York City and Colorado.  Since coming to the US, he has won more than 50 songwriting and performing awards (www.rupertwatesmusic.com/awards).

His music is an eclectic mix of acoustic, melodic art/folk, with flavors of jazz, vaudeville and cabaret. He has released nine solo CDs. They have received outstanding reviews in the international online press and tracks from them have been played on radio all over the world. In addition, Wates’ songs have been covered by other artists in the UK, Canada and the US. Two full length tribute CDs to his material have been recorded: ‘Crazy Puzzle’ (2015) by Nashville-based performer Roxie Rogers, and ‘Wide Open Heart’ (July 2017) by Los Angeles vocalist Susan Kohler. Both these CDs were initiated and funded entirely by the artists themselves, and comprise exclusively songs taken from Rupert Wates’ back catalog.

Despite Wates’ British background, and underpinning the universality of his music’s appeal, Folk And Acoustic Music Exchange has called him “a prime figure in American music” (www.acousticmusic.com) and goes on: “This is one gifted sonofabitch… If you’re not hip to this guy yet you’re missing out.”

Audiences everywhere respond to Wates’ brand of melodic art/folk—haunting songs that ring true.

Teada – August 22

A traditional band with a truly worldwide reach, Téada has appeared as a frequent headliner at major music festivals throughout the US, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Africa, Russia, Israel and Australia. Highlights include a 30,000-capacity stadium concert in Brittany, along with performances at Rainforest World Music Festival & Penang World Music Festival in Malaysia, Edmonton Folk Festival in Canada, Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe and World Music Festival Taiwan. In 2014 the band performed to 40,000 people during an extensive 7-week tour of Japan / Taiwan. 

Spring 2022 will bring the release of Téada’s sixth album on the Gael Linn label, featuring the brilliant vocals of Séamus Begley along with the band’s customary re-energising of rare tunes from the tradition.

Perhaps the premier trad Celtic band around coming to our living room!!  What a score.

Lonesome Ace Stringband – August 11

The Lonesome Ace Stringband is an old-time band with bluegrass chops that play some righteous folk and country music. There’s a depth of groove and sense of space not often heard in bluegrass today, a level of instrumental interplay and vocal blend uncommon in old-time, and an on-stage rapport that transcends all of this.

Back again, one of the best shows ever!!!

Three Canadians lost in the weird and wonderful traditional country music of the American South, the band members Chris Coole (banjo), John Showman (fiddle) and Max Heineman (bass) are each journeyman musicians and veterans of some of Canada’s top roots music acts (New Country Rehab, The David Francey Band, The Foggy Hogtown Boys, Fiver).

Instrumentation alone instantly sets LAS’s sound apart: consisting of just fiddle, clawhammer banjo, and upright bass, the band moves freely between having a sound so powerful that it doesn’t seem like it should be coming from a trio, to a sparseness and fragility that draws the listener in and refreshes the ear. All three are compelling lead singers, each with his own character and range. This allows for the vocal texture to shift depending on how the song needs to feel – and what the song has to say. When those voices come together the power of the harmonies is unshakable. It’s clear to anyone who’s heard LAS that they just don’t sound like any other band.

One must, however, look at the roots of LAS to understand where the sound comes from. Starting in 2007, the band took up residency in Toronto’s legendary Dakota Tavern routinely playing 10 sets of music every weekend. LAS spent 7 years as a house band before ever taking the show on the road or recording a note. In these days when new records and buzz-bands come at us like a jacked-up news cycle, this workaday approach hearkens to another era. Those years were a gestation period that allowed for a type of looseness and intuition to develop, something that can only come from experienced musicians clocking hundreds of on-stage hours together.

As of 2021, the band has toured internationally, been engaged at some of the largest festivals in North America and Europe (including Merlefest, Rockygrass, Wintergrass, Winnipeg Folk Festival, Vancouver Folk Festival, Gooikorts, John Hartford Memorial), and recorded 4 albums. On the first two albums, Old Time (2014), and Gone For Evermore (2016) the band leaned heavily on the traditional old-time cannon to express what it needed to say musically. In 2018, with the release of When the Sun Comes Up, the band showcased its songwriting and studio savvy, offering up a more progressive interpretation of old-time music, and taking it’s sound to new places. All three albums have been embraced by both fans and critics alike.

The 4th album “Modern Old-Time Sounds for the Bluegrass and Folksong Jamboree” was released in November 2019. It showcases the band’s musical range – especially its interpretive skills in adapting repertoire from outside the genre. Bluegrass Unlimited describes the album as “unorthodox enough to be brilliant“.

CANCELLED Jig Jam – July 27

THIS SHOW IS CANCELLED. Sorry folks, JigJam had travel delays and won’t make it to MT in time for this show. You can still catch them at the Fáilte Montana Irish Festival this weekend though!

When virtuoso Irish playing jumps the pond running naked through the wide open fields of bluegrass/Americana JigJam is born. Bluegrass and American Folk music originated from their homes and now JigJam are here to take it back!

This Offaly and Tipperary born band have started the first wave of attack in the new Irish invasion of Americana with two new members from Glasgow injecting the magic of Scottish folk music!

‘Foot stomping’, ‘high energy’ and lots of badass is what you’re in for when you see this musical powerhouse live in concert.

Founding members from Offaly Jamie McKeogh (Lead singer and guitar) and Daithi Melia (5 String Banjo and Dobro) were joined by Tipperary born Gavin Strappe (Mandolin and Tenor Banjo) in 2016. This year they are joined by two Glasgow boys in Calum Morrison (Double Bass) and Danny Hunter (Fiddle) to make up this iGrass (Irish Bluegrass) quintet.

Described as ‘The best Irish band in bluegrass’ and ‘sparkling, infectious’ these lads have been hailed as ‘Ireland’s answer to New Grass Revival’

Bluegrass has its roots in Irish music and Irish immigration. iGrass and JigJam is what happens when the Irish find their prodigal son.

Growling Old Men – July 21

Together they’re The Growling Old Men, individually they are Ben Winship and John Lowell, and they’re two first rate musicians in every sense of the word.

Lowell, a flat picking acoustic guitarist of the highest order with a stunning, smooth vocal style that can inhabit all kinds of genres has forged a 30 year career based out of Livingston, Montana. He’s performed at the Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival stage for several years with his band Kane’s River, the Telluride stage with Loose Ties, and at the Vancouver Folk Festival with the John Lowell Band along with hundreds of other performances in the last 30 years in locations from Shetland to San Bernardino.

Ben Winship, an award winning mandolinist/mutli-instrumentalist, vocalist and songwriter hails from Victor, Idaho. Winship’s version of string band music is an exploration of crossroads; where raw meets refined, original meets traditional, weird meets familiar, organized meets free ranging. The Boston Globe called his sound “A further leap from traditional hill country music.” While Tim O’Brien refers to him as “One of the acoustic music scene’s best writers.”