Curtis McMurtry writes songs about villains that believe they are victims. Influenced by Fiona Apple, Billy Strayhorn and Leonard Cohen, Curtis’ music combines sinister lyrics with lush, unconventional arrangements. His first solo album Respectable Enemy was released in August 2014, and drew comparisons to Calexico and John Fullbright. His sophomore album The Hornet’s Nest was released in February 2017, and continues to garner critical acclaim. Curtis’ music has been featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition, and his song “Wrong Inflection” was included in the soundtrack for comedian Tig Notaro’s Amazon Prime series One Mississippi.
Curtis was born and raised in Austin, Texas and grew up listening to local musicians Warren Hood, Ephraim Owens, Seela, and his father, James McMurtry. Curtis studied music composition and ethnomusicology in college, primarily writing contemporary chamber music for banjo and strings. After graduation, Curtis moved to Nashville to sharpen his songwriting by co-writing with elder statesmen including Fred Koller and Guy Clark. He has since moved back to Austin where he performs as a quartet with cellist Diana Burgess (of Mother Falcon), upright bassist Taylor Turner (of Magia Negra) and trumpeter Nathan Calzada.
Equal parts fast-paced and soulful, 5-piece modern-folk Americana act, The Way Down Wanderers, draw listeners in with energy, originality and soulful generosity.
Austin Thompson – guitar, lead & harmony vocals as well as percussion in the studio. Austin studied music at the collegiate level where he grew as a musician. Austin finds much inspiration for his lyrics in the beauty of nature and his love for hiking. He adds his unique musical influences of rock, folk and the spoken word to the music he writes and performs.
Collin Krause – Collin plays mandolin, fiddle and sings lead and harmony vocals for the band. Collin became involved in music when he began taking classical violin at the age of 3. Growing up around traditional roots & bluegrass music had a big influence on him. Collin enjoys writing, co-writing and arranging music for the band.
John Merikoski– Drums, Percussion. John has been playing drums since age nine and is featured on dozens of recordings, ranging from Jazz and Metal to Hip-hop and Bluegrass. In 2012 he was awarded a full ride scholarship to study Jazz performance for drum set at the University of Illinois where he has taken a break to pursue The Way Down Wanderers, full-time.
John Williams – Upright bass and vocals. John is a former classical upright bass performance major who also enjoys singing, song-writing and entertaining a crowd
Travis Kowalsky – Banjo & fiddle. Travis got his start in music at a very young age in his family band. He is entirely self-taught and can play pretty much any instrument he picks up. The Wanderers were lucky enough to meet Travis at his home town festival in Alpena Michigan and he has been touring with them ever since.
Holly presents the dichotomy of a calm exterior with unbounded passion for music, with a lifetime of experiences able to lace her lyrics with profound insights, sharing her love, loss, and life through a simple six strings. The last 4 years Holly has been playing and writing in the band Honeysuckle. She has two solo releases as well as three releases with the band. You can find the Boston based artist touring nationally and appearing at stages such as The Newport Folk Festival, Lollapallooza and CMJ.
Rachel Sumner is an award-winning songwriter, singer, and educator whose work bridges the worlds of folk, bluegrass, and chamber Americana. A classically trained musician turned Americana songwriter, Sumner first made her mark as a co-founder of the genre-bending roots group Twisted Pine before launching her solo career. Her lyric-driven songs, known for their intricate melodies and evocative storytelling, have earned her widespread recognition, including the prestigious Kerrville New Folk Competition win and the Lennon Award in the folk category of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest. In 2024, her original compositions and reimagined folk arrangements were archived at the Library of Congress following a live performance and oral history interview.
As a performer, Sumner has captivated audiences across the country, both as a solo artist and with her band, Traveling Light. Her music transcends folk conventions, blending poetic storytelling, lush harmonies, and dynamic instrumental interplay with the virtuosic talents of her bandmates, Kat Wallace (fiddle) and Mike Siegel (upright bass). Whether in an intimate listening room or on a festival stage, Sumner’s performances invite listeners into richly woven sonic landscapes.
Beyond the stage, Sumner is a dedicated educator with a passion for helping artists find their voice—both literally and figuratively. She specializes in songwriting, vocal technique, and music business coaching, guiding students in developing their craft, refining their artistic identity, and navigating the realities of a career in music. She has taught at WUMB’s Summer Acoustic Music Week and Winter Weekend programs, as well as privately and at the Passim School of Music. Drawing from her own experience as an independent artist, Sumner empowers songwriters and performers with the tools they need to build sustainable, fulfilling careers while staying true to their artistic vision.
Jason Myles Goss is a singer-songwriter and musician hailing from Massachusetts who now calls New York City home. Over the years, Goss has built a small, grassroots following the old fashioned way—by making records on his own dime and by playing any stage that would have him.
With a distinctive voice and a gift for storytelling, his music has garnered millions of streams on Spotify, with his song hospital shirt alone receiving 9 million plays (as well as being covered in Norwegian). Jason has toured throughout the U.S. (predominantly focused on the east coast) and has supported some of the finest artists working today, such as: Shovels & Rope, Anais Mitchell, Watchhouse (formerly Mandolin Orange), Lori Mckenna and Peter Bradley Adams, among others.
Goss co-produced Misfit, his latest EP (2023), with engineer and multi-instrumentalist Joel Arnow at his studio in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY. In addition to Arnow, Misfit features contributions from an impressive roster of musicians, Michael Bellar (Amos Lee, Jump Little Children), Austin Nevins (Anais Mitchell, Josh Ritter), Craig Akin (Red Molly, Vance Gilbert), JP Ruggieri (The Wood Brothers, Seth Walker) and Dietrich Strause (Rose Cousins, Kris Delmhorst).
Goss spent his childhood in Hopedale, MA, a small mill town located between Worcester and Boston. His first foray into show business was playing at a bar located across from an airport landing strip.
There are two ways of handling a dangerous, raging river: you can surrender and let it carry you away, or you can swim against the flow.
For The Secret Sisters, there was a point after the release of their last record when they could have chosen to do neither – instead, sinking to the bottom as the weight of the world washed away their dreams. They went from touring with Bob Dylan to losing their label, purging their team, filing bankruptcy and almost permanently trading harmonies for housecleaning. But there’s a mythical pull to music that kept sisters Laura and Lydia Rogers moving forward, and they came out with a biting and beautiful third LP, produced by Brandi Carlile, You Don’t Own Me Anymore. Their first as New West signees, it’s a document of hardship and redemption, of pushing forward when it would be so much easier to drown in grief. And it’s a story about how passion and pure artistry can be the strongest sort of salvation – how art is left, like perfect grains of sand, when everything else has washed away.
Abbie Gardner is a fiery dobro player with an infectious smile. Whether performing solo or with Americana harmony trio Red Molly, her acclaimed tales of love and loss, both gritty and sweet, are propelled by her impeccable lap style slide guitar playing. Solo performances feature the dobro as a solo instrument, bouncing between a solid rhythmic backbone and ripping lead lines, all in support of her voice and songs. Her latest recording DobroSinger was released May 13, 2022. It’s intimate, real and raw – her dobro and voice recorded at the same time at home, without a band or any studio tricks to hide behind. You can hear every breath, every chuckle, as if you are in the room with her.
Over 1000 shows, 10 years, and 200,000 miles have passed since Dean Fields went on the road to pursue a career in music. During that time his address changed from Richmond VA to Miami to Boston until most recently settling in Nashville TN. Now, he hits the road again to promote his most recent release “Any Minute Now.”
His recent homecoming has found Fields selling out shows in Richmond VA, as well as nearby Washington DC. “Dean Fields writes lyrics like Leonard Cohen and sings like Jeff Buckley. It’s no surprise that there’s a serious buzz on this Virginia singer-songwriter.” (Free Times) While continuing to feed his passion for music, Dean is fueled by a single-minded love to perform, sharing the stage with Willie Nelson, Old Crow Medicine Show, Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, KT Tunstall, Blues Traveler, Rosanne Cash, Eric Hutchinson, Colin Hay, Bob Schneider, Auqualung, Hootie and the Blowfish, John Hiatt, Cake, Bruce Hornsby, Rusted Root, Madeleine Peyroux, Carbon Leaf, among others. In addition, Fields’ maturity as a writer and performer is brought to the fore by some of the region’s finest musicians. The band features members of Mandy Moore, Sparklehorse, Agents of Good Roots, KD Lang, Carbonleaf and Modern Groove Syndicate.
Harmony, rhythm, indelible songs – these are the hallmarks of Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem, the New England based folk quartet now in its 20th year. From the Newport Folk Festival to the California World Music Festival and beyond, this band’s steadfast brew of wit, camaraderie, and musicality leaves audiences everywhere humming and hopeful, spirits renewed.
Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem are Rani Arbo (fiddle, guitar), Andrew Kinsey (bass, banjo, ukulele), Anand Nayak (electric and acoustic guitars) and Scott Kessel (percussion). At the helm, Arbo is “blessed with an unmistakable voice, both light and sultry, with a hint of tremolo and smoke” (Acoustic Guitar). With Kinsey and Nayak’s vibrant baritones and Kessel’s resonant bass, the band’s signature lockstep harmonies can shake the rafters or hush the room. Arbo’s fiddle is sweet and sinewy, while Nayak’s guitar stretches across genre lines. Kinsey’s old- time bass anchors the deep groove of Kessel’s homemade percussion kit — a truly funky collection of cardboard boxes, tin cans, caulk tubes, packing-tape tambourines, bottle-cap rattles, Mongolian jaw harps, and a vinyl suitcase.
In the lineage of string bands who blur the boundaries of American roots music, Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem have always been standard-bearers, with a particular knack for pairing words and music. From bluegrass barnstormers to sultry swing, old-time gospel to bluesy folk-rock, they consistently turn in lush arrangements with “stylish, unexpected choices” (Acoustic Guitar). Original songs fit seamlessly aside artful re-workings of Georgia Sea Islands music, Hank Williams, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen — just a few of the many places this band is willing to go.
Since 2014, Eleanor Buckland has been one-third of Lula Wiles, the Boston-based folk-rock trio that has become an acoustic music scene favorite with their three critically hailed albums. Their two most recent albums were released on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings: What Will We Do (2019) and Shame & Sedition (2021). For much of this time, Buckland was also working on another musical project – her own album. You Don’t Have To Know (released on October 29) spotlights a different side of Buckland’s musical interests as it sets her deeply personal songs against inventive indie rock arrangements.
Born and raised in Maine, Buckland comes from a family full of musicians. Her grandmother, Betty Buckland, was prominent in the New England bluegrass scene, while her father, Andy Buckland, played electric guitar in Boston area bands. It’s not surprising then that someone who grew up playing bluegrass fiddle music as well as a healthy dose of Michelle Branch and Sheryl Crow would wind up with varied musical tastes – something Buckland clearly demonstrates on her solo debut.
