Dwight & Nicole

Genre defying DWIGHT + NICOLE can trace their musical roots through blues, R&B, and soul with a little roots rock, alternative, and Americana sprinkled in. DWIGHT + NICOLE have been Nominated for 10 Boston Music Awards, 10 New England Music Awards, and 11 Daisie awards, winning multiple “Band of the Year”, “Vocalist of the Year”, “Best Blues/R&B Band”, “Female Vocalist of the Year”, “Blues Act of the Year” and “Video of the Year”.

Ritcher and Nelson met in Boston, Massachusetts fresh out of college. Cutting their teeth on the local club circuit, they each fronted popular area bands, and discovered a shared obsession of soul & blues greats like the Staples Singers, Albert King, and Etta James. They began singing together and developed a close friendship that grew over time culminating in the formation of Dwight & Nicole. They started out as a duo with Dwight on electric guitar and Nicole on tambourine, stomping their feet for the beat and singing in harmony. After a move to Burlington VT, they met powerhouse drummer Ezra Oklan (Nicole Atkins, Elle King) and the group quickly formed a trio with Nelson picking up the bass. Now they also feature keyboard wizard Leon Campos.

With numerous releases under their belts, their most recent “The Jaguar, The Raven, and The Snake” just received the deluxe treatment in August of 2024, with the addition of the single, “Saying Goodbye.” Produced by acclaimed producer Joel Hamilton and recorded at his Studio G in Brooklyn and Ocean Sound in Giske, Norway throughout 2022. Album tracks feature the band with guests the Daptone Horns and Arkai Strings, amongst others.

“Dwight & Nicole are my favorite new band!” – MAVIS STAPLES

Zoe Lloyd

Zoe Lloyd is a singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles. Her debut album Blue Letters (January 2023) walks the line between indie rock, folk, and country. Born and raised in Massachusetts, she and her band are working on new album at Woolly Mammoth Sound in Waltham, MA. Blending elements of modern indie folk artists like Adrianne Lenker with her old favorites such as Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Townes Van Zandt & others, Zoe Lloyd writes old songs with a new voice.

Celia Woodsmith

Celia Woodsmith is a GRAMMY Nominated performer, vocalist, percussionist, and songwriter. With a style that can be described as “one of a kind: gritty, muscular, folksy and intimate sometimes all at once” (Bluegrass Situation) she has been a fixture of the New England Roots Music scene since 2005.

For the last 12 years, Woodsmith has predominantly performed with the Americana string band, Della Mae. In 2014 Della Mae was nominated for a Best Bluegrass Album GRAMMY for their record “This World Oft Can Be”. Their 2020 album “Headlight” has been described as “…powerful writing, soaring vocals, and moving musical unity — challenge us, energize us, and touch us as they light the way. This is an album on which you can feel the emotions of the group in each song as they evoke anger, sadness, hopelessness, and joy”. (No Depression)

The all-female Della Mae has performed in 20 countries with the US Department of State’s cultural diplomacy program “American Music Abroad”. Woodsmith spoke about her experiences with travel and music at TEDx Piscataqua River in Portsmouth, NH in a talk called “A Soft Drink and a Song in the Hills of Pakistan”.

In 2016 Woodsmith took a hiatus from touring to write, listen, and reflect about her years on the road. During that time she bicycled 2,000 miles from Geneva, Switzerland to Vlorë, Albania. Post hiatus, she released her solo record “Cast Iron Shoes”. The all original album combines raw, roots-rock with heart-searing songs like “Sicily” which paint a solemn picture of the global refugee crisis. When not on the road with Della Mae, Woodsmith performs with roots-rock band Say Darling and has released two albums of original music with them.

She currently lives in Kittery, ME with her husband and dog. Amidst touring full-time with Della Mae, she teaches songwriting, singing, stage craft and guitar.

Nicole Atkins

For two decades, Nicole Atkins has created her own brand of spectral American rock & roll. She’s an old-school torch singer for the modern world, funneling her award-winning songwriting chops and genre-spanning influences — including psychedelic rock, Muscle Shoals soul, the pop grandeur of Roy Orbison, and the dark drama of Nick Cave — into six albums that have earned a global audience.

Regularly featured on year-end “best of” lists by Rolling Stone, NPR, and The New York Times, Atkins has collaborated with artists from across the musical spectrum, including Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, David Byrne, Chris Isaak, Spoon, Elvis Costello, and most recently supported Stevie Nicks on her 2024 US Tour. The title track of her major-label debut album won The ASCAP Foundation Sammy Kahn Award, and her songs have appeared in prime-time TV shows, Netflix and Max, national ad campaigns for American Express, and on the Billboard charts, with tracks like “Domino” becoming Top 40 AAA hits. A road warrior who has performed everywhere from Carnegie Hall to Late Night With David Letterman to Later… with Jules Holland, Atkins is also a professional illustrator and painter whose work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal and No Depression.

Adam Sherman

Vocalist, performer, songwriter Adam Sherman was the voice of A&M recording artists Private Lightning, lead singer and songwriter of The Souls and member of The Nervous Eaters. He has been nominated for six Boston Music Awards. Songbird, River of Dreams and Triangle Sky are Adam’s critically acclaimed full-length solo albums. He performs regularly with the Adam Sherman Band.

Adam’s song “Don’t Need to Make You Mine” performed by The Nervous Eaters was “Coolest Song In the World This Week” on Little Steven’s Underground Garage for the last week of April 2024.

Robert Thomas & the Sessionmen

International Acoustic Music Award winner, Robert Thomas has crafted songs for legends including, Kenny Rogers, Bonnie Raitt, Joe Cocker and the Dixie Chicks. As a staff writer for music publishing, Thomas was tasked with writing hits and his diverse repertoire reflects that. He writes songs we can all connect with – memorable sing along melodies, clever, ear friendly lyrics couched in an array of rhythms – all introduced with a captivating, often humorous, repartee that is a throwback to the story telling era of Mark Twain, Garrison Keillor and Stuart Maclean. Accompanied on fiddle, mandolin, guitar, keyboards and percussion by the legendary “sessionmen” – Ray Legere and Jon Arsenault- whose credits in their own right include, Alison Krauss, Rita MacNeil, Doc Watson, Tony Rice and The Chieftains – Thomas delivers beautiful, energetic Folk/Americana mixed with a touch of Bluegrass that has captivated audiences across North America and Europe, and garnered Entertainer of the Year and songwriter nominations from the East Coast Music Association and the International Acoustic Music Awards.

One sentence from Rodney Crowell sums up the artistry of Robert Thomas and the sessionmen – “These boys know what they’re doing.”

Olivia Ellen Lloyd

Olivia Ellen Lloyd will try anything once. From flight attendant school in Dallas to producing theater in New York and teaching in Guatemala, Lloyd sought adventure but struggled to find a greater sense of purpose – until she found her way back to music. Channeling that restless spirit, she writes songs that dig deep for hope in the face of hardship.

Her debut album, Loose Cannon, has been streamed over 1 million times while she has been crossing the country playing shows, winning songwriting contests (like Kerrville in 2023) and generally eating life down to the rind. She also works as an in-demand side woman, singing backing vocals for the likes of Lizzie No, Emily Scott Robinson, and Renee Rapp during her 2024 performance at the All Things Go Festival in Forest Hills, Queens.

Lloyd has spent the past three years doubling down on her efforts to build community within the Alt-Country and Americana scene while deepening her working partnership with Mike Robinson, an in-demand sideman known for touring and recording with the likes of Sarah Jarosz, Railroad Earth, Teddy Thompson, Iris Dement, Lindsay Lou, Bella White, Zach Bryan, Jobi Riccio and Ryan Beatty. Mike served as her producer and primary instrumentalist on this project.

Together they crafted an album that refuses to be placed in a narrow genre definition, focusing instead on building songs that paint a picture of liberation from oppressive patriarchal and paternalistic forces.

She is also a newly inaugurated member of the Resistance Revival Chorus, a collective of more than 60 women, and non-binary singers, who join together to breathe joy and song into the resistance, and to uplift and center women’s voices.

Water Street Wranglers

The Water Street Wranglers are an Boston-based Americana band with strong roots in bluegrass and a passion for mixing traditional and contemporary sounds. This quintet mixes driving bluegrass standards with fresh, ear-catching originals in each set, and their signature sound is completed by their 3-part harmony singing. The band features Chandler Harris on lead vocals, Caleb Kibby on mandolin and vocals, Aiden Schnell on guitar and vocals, Alayna Whitkanack on fiddle and vocals, and Wes Shuck on the four string upright bass and the one string Yo-Yo.

Annie Lynch

Annie Lynch is a singer, songwriter, guitarist, and leader of the internationally touring Americana band, Annie and The Beekeepers. She has performed at SXSW, Philadelphia Folk Festival, UK’s End of The Road, Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion, and has shared stages with The Lumineers, Josh Ritter, Justin Townes Earl, and Scott McMicken (Dr Dog) amongst others. Since their 2007 debut, Annie and The Beekeepers have released two albums and an EP, including their most recent full-length, “My Bonneville”, titled after Annie’s first car. Annie has received wide ranging critical praise from publications like The Boston Globe, Washington Post, American Songwriter, Paste Magazine, and Filter. Performer Magazine refers to Annie’s music as “American roots music, sweetly intimate with vast boot-stomping songwriting”.

Driftwood

Music has guided Driftwood to hallowed ground many times since its founding members, Joe Kollar and Dan Forsyth, started making music as high schoolers in Joe’s parents’ basement. Whether the Upstate New York folk rock group—which today also includes violinist Claire Byrne, bassist Joey Arcuri, and drummer Sam Fishman—are converting new fans on a hardscrabble tour across the country or playing to a devoted crowd at hero Levon Helm’s Woodstock barn, the band’s shapeshifting approach to folk music continues to break new ground. And yet in many ways Driftwood’s latest work, the transformative December Last Call, finds the group coming home.

Recorded in that very same basement where the Driftwood dream began, December Last Call lyrically reflects on the recent past, musing on the ways the group grew up, together and apart, through curveballs like new parenthood or pandemic shutdowns. But sonically, the band’s sixth album looks confidently to the future, experimenting with new sounds while staying true to the bluegrass roots that built them. Across the album’s nine tracks, the band often leans into hard-rocking electric guitars and driving percussion: On “Every Which Way But Loose,” we get a foot-tapping beat and a sweeping chorus, and on “Up All Night Blues,” the band shines with an ambling, sing-along-able reflection on the challenges of new motherhood. But other tracks, like standout closer “Stardust,” take a simpler route, allowing bare-bones vocals and acoustic instrumentals to underpin a deeper emotional message.

One of Driftwood’s biggest differentiators—and perhaps its biggest strength—is the sheer breadth of talent in its lineup, with Claire, Joe, and Dan all contributing as songwriters and vocalists. This creative push-pull, where each selects songs to share with the group and record together, bakes vulnerability and collaborative spirit into every recording. “It’s at the heart of what we do,” says Dan. “Everybody has a strong love for songs, for songwriting, and we each appreciate everybody else and the way that they contribute to that.”

While 2019’s acclaimed Tree of Shade tapped Simon Felice as producer, the band opted to self-produce this latest effort, leaning into their creative impulses and striving to capture their distinctive live energy. Figuring out how to channel that on-stage intensity into a recording has actually, in many ways, been a lesson in restraint. “When I look back at the things we were writing and playing, oh, I don’t know, 10, 12 years ago, they were really arranged: a lot of you do this here, we’re going to do this there, we’re going to break down, we’re going to do a big build,” Claire explains. “These days, it’s more like, ‘Let’s play the song and just see what happens.’”

This approach makes all the more sense when you consider Driftwood’s live shows, which operate not only as effervescent, twang-studded musical parties, but also as reunions for their throng of devoted listeners—folks who have started to feel less like fans and more like something bigger. “They’re supporters. They’re friends,” explains Joe. “It’s crazy how much love we’ve got and how many wild situations on the road we’ve gotten out of because of those people.” Many of them are quite literally invested in the band’s future: December Last Call was a crowd-funded effort, and it wasn’t the band’s first. It’s as if every listener, ticketbuyer, album backer, and general band evangelist is in on Driftwood’s biggest secret: this whole band thing has endured for nearly two decades because it offers a kind of community you can’t get just anywhere.

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