Dori Freeman’s inimitable signature sound is in peak form on her fourth studio album, Ten Thousand Roses. Raised among a family of musicians in the Blue Ridge Mountains and hailed by Rolling Stone as “one of the most authentic vocalists to emerge from the hills of southwestern Virginia in recent years,” she’s a bonafide Appalachian artist, while simultaneously shattering the archetype by empowering the characters in her songs with personal strength and homegrown wisdom. Through this process, she both defies and expands notions of what it means to be from the region.

Ten Thousand Roses follows three widely acclaimed records produced by Teddy Thompson, one of which produced “You Say,” which continues to find fans, steadily climbing toward six million streams on Spotify, largely by word of mouth. Freeman has been praised by outlets such as NPR, Rolling Stone and The New York Times, but has chosen to remain outside of Nashville literally and figuratively. She lives in Galax, Virginia, where she says she’s been better able to develop her music in a truer way to her personally. “I’ve never been drawn to living in the city as much as I love visiting them. I prefer a rural, small town life,” says Freeman. She also believes that living apart from the industry frees her from the pressure to fit current ideas of what a genre should sound like. “I just make music I like and hope other people will like it, too.”

Americana singer-songwriter, Sawyer Fredericks, hailing from his family farm in central New York State, cut his teeth at the age of 13, playing local farmers markets, open mics, and iconic New York venues like Caffe Lena, the Towne Crier Cafe, and The Bitter End. With his deep, beyond-his-years original lyrics and melodies, raw, soulful vocals, and powerful live performances, Sawyer seemed an unlikely match for reality tv, but having been scouted by casting directors at 15, he quickly won over broad audiences with his genuine delivery and unique arrangements of classic songs, going on to win season 8 of NBC’s The Voice.

Fresh from that whirlwind, Fredericks went forward with the release of his major label debut, A Good Storm, with Republic Records, an impressive blend of soulful Folk, blues, and rock, entirely written or co-written by Sawyer. Choosing to go independent, for more creative freedom, his 2018 Hide Your Ghost, fully written and produced by Fredericks, sheds the high gloss major label treatment, and stays true to Fredericks’s honest and elegantly stripped down style, a self-described “free range folk”, incorporating elements of blues, roots rock, and jazz with live instrumental arrangements throughout. In writing about his top ten Americana albums of 2018 in No Depression and AXS Magazine, Chris Griffy recommends Hide Your Ghost as “a
bluesy folk rocker with a no-frills production that relies on Fredericks’ raw voice to carry the emotional weight.”

With song premieres in People Magazine and American Songwriter and an album preview in Billboard Magazine, on May 1, 2020 Fredericks released his 4th album, Flowers For You. “With his second independent album, Flowers For You, Fredericks is expanding his sound even more, moving from bluesy folk into more expansive Americana, rock, and tinges of jazz,” remarks Chris Griffy in Concert Hopper. Two songs from Flowers For You won top awards from the 18th annual Independent Music Awards, “Born” won in the Folk/Singer-Songwriter category and “Amen” won the Vox Pop award in the Social Action Song category. “Born” was recently officially added to SiriusXM’s Coffee House channel.

Throughout his career, Sawyer has played many festivals and prestigious venues like the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival with 2019 touring highlights including official showcases at SXSW, AmericanaFest, Folk Alliance International, and BMI’s Island Hopper Songwriter Fest.

Originally from Chicago, Rachel Baiman moved to Nashville at eighteen, and has spent the last decade working as a musician in a wide variety of roles, from session musician (Molly Tuttle, Kelsey Waldon, Caroline Spence), to live sidewoman (Kacey Musgraves, Amy Ray), to bandmate and producer. Fiddle music was her first love, and she is known in the bluegrass and old time world for her work with progressive acoustic duo 10 String Symphony with fiddle player Christian Sedelmyer. Her first solo album Shame, was produced by Andrew Marlin of Mandolin Orange, and established her role as part of a new generation of political songwriters. Since 2017, Baiman has toured her solo project internationally with appearances at the Kilkenny Roots Festival in Ireland, the Mullum Music Festival in Australia, and the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage in Washington, DC. She has also released a variety of small scale projects; her 2018 Free Dirt EP Thanksgiving, which read as a sort of epilogue to Shame, a duet project with singer Mike Wheeler, which is a more stripped down nod to her acoustic roots. Her follow up, Cycles, further pushed her musical spirit, finding a grittier musical medium for her signature unabashed and defiant songwriting, employing a majority-female team.

Her most recent release is the critically acclaimed Common Nation of Sorrow. On this record, she tells stories of American capitalism, and the individual and communal devastation it manifests. “The reality is that the vast majority of us are being taken advantage of by the same brutal economic and political systems. Maybe that shared oppression is a place in which we can meet and fightback”, she explains. In contrast with her previous work, Baiman is the sole producer of Common Nation of Sorrow, which she recorded in her hometown of Nashville. She leans heavily into her bluegrass and old-time sensibilities on this new record. “In some ways, this is a homecoming project for me”, she says. “I wanted to explore these songs based on who and where I am right now, with the town and the people who have raised me musically using the music from the place I’m singing about.” On Common Nation of Sorrow, she has found a production style to match her straightforward writing. Baiman displays a certain self-awareness and comfort with the inability to be all things, while simultaneously pushing to new heights with her message, and delivering a heartbreaking, albeit beautiful, assessment of her country.

 

American Songwriter describes Eilen Jewell as “one of America’s most intriguing, creative and idiosyncratic voices”. The Boise, Idaho songwriter is truly one of a kind. Since 2006, Jewell has performed on festival stages from Byron Bay Bluesfest in Australia to California’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. Her music has earned accolades from NPR, BBC, Rolling Stone and MOJO as well as from heads of state (Former British Prime Minister David Cameron ) and Hollywood actors (Tom Hanks).

Accompanying her all over the world for the last 15 years has been Jerry “Cold-Blooded” Miller. Miller’s solos are legendary. But it’s the textures, soundscapes and magic that he weaves throughout Jewell’s songs that have been a signature sound to her music.

Jerry Glenn Miller has been playing and studying guitar since his childhood in Nashville, TN, later earning a degree in guitar performance at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA. Miller has played blues, country, rockabilly, folk, jazz, and surf, touring and recording with artists such as Freddy Fender, Sonny Burgess and Billy Lee Riley. He also toured for 10 years with Bluestime, fronted by Magic Dick and Jay Geils, and has performed several times as part of B.B. King’s BluesFest.

Jewell and Miller share a passion for music of the past: classic country, raw blues and gospel as well as folk and singer-songwriters from the 1960s. They also share a love of space between the notes in the music they create. Miller has often said he has enjoyed playing Jewell’s songs more than anyone else’s material. Indeed, the colors and tones that he creates are a major part of this music.

While the band will continue to tour (dates are booked through summer, 2022), the idea of Jewell and Miller touring as a duo has been percolating for some years now. They are excited to present this intimate performance of their well-loved music to stages for the first time.

With her new release, Song To A Refugee, Diana Jones brings her signature brand of storytelling to the worldwide refugee crisis. The UK’s Guardian/Observer calls Song To A Refugee “a record for our time.”  This powerful song cycle reflects renewed empathy for, and common cause with the plight of refugees. “None of us know where our footsteps will fall,” Jones suggests.

From a woman walking miles to the US border carrying her child, to the young children separated from their parents fleeing their homeland, Jones gives an immediacy to the stories of our time while illuminating the more generic themes within. Song To A Refugee artfully considers the times we live in, speaks for those often without a voice and encourages a humanitarian response.

Naomi Westwater (they/she) is a queer, Black-multiracial singer-songwriter from Massachusetts. Their work combines folk music, poetry, and spirituality. Their hope is that through ritual and storytelling they can aid nature in the end of capitalism and the return of community, creativity, and collective joy. 

Naomi holds a Master of Music in Contemporary Performance and Production from Berklee College of Music and she is a part of The Club Passim Folk Collective, where she produces Re-Imagining Lilith Fair: a tribute to the feminist music scene of the 1990s with an intersection lens for today. 

Naomi was nominated for a 2021 and 2022 Boston Music Award for best singer-songwriter, and has been featured in The Boston Globe, Under The Radar, WBUR, WGBH, and The Bluegrass Situation. 

Naomi is on faculty at Club Passim and Not Sorry Productions teaching songwriting, tarot, and poetry, and leads the Boston Chapter of We Make Noise. She is also an event producer and has produced shows at The Apollo Theatre, The Beacon Theatre, The Bell House, and more. Currently, Naomi is producing a series called Reclaiming Folk: A Celebration of People of Color in Folk Music.