Carper’s deep, old-timey music roots were firmly planted as a child, playing upright bass and singing in her family’s traveling country band in rural Nebraska. Her love of country classics was cultivated as she laid beneath the console listening to her parents’ record collection. Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, and more became the soundtrack of her youth.
After two years of college, wanderlust set in, and Carper hit the road in the family’s 1980 Dodge Maxi Van, and landed in historic Eureka Springs, Arkansas. There, she was welcomed into the busking community, and found a new home base—a place to write, reflect, and rejuvenate in years to come. Along the way, she founded award-winning bands like power trio The Carper Family, the perfect outlet for her unique skills and style. The band brought her original work to life in a simple yet dynamic fashion that also served her inspirations – country, bluegrass, western swing, and old- style jazz, playing festivals and shows across the globe, and on shows like “A Prairie Home Companion.” Carper also holds a spot in award-winning Arkansas foursome Sad Daddy, and founded roots duo Buffalo Gals with Sad Daddy bandmate and partner, award-winning fiddler Rebecca Patek.
She released her critically acclaimed solo release Daddy’ s Country Gold in 2021, followed by the equally revered Ramblin’ Soul, which came out in the fall of 2023.
On some other plane out there in the great big multiverse, Kelly Willis could well be the biggest Nashville country music star of the last 35 years. But things panned out rather differently for her here on this Earth. The Oklahoma-born Army brat was barely into her early 20s and still cutting her teeth fronting a spunky rockabilly band in Austin when a “check-this-kid-out” tip from Texas songwriter Nanci Griffith landed her on the radar of producer Tony Brown, who promptly signed her to MCA Records. But it wasn’t until she left Nashville for Texas that she took off. Liberated from the Nashville playbook and emboldened by a jolting shot of nothing-left-to-lose, she set about making her next record in Austin her way. The end result, 1999’s aptly-titled What I Deserve, changed everything. What I Deserve may not have made Kelly a household name on the order of Shania, Faith, or Reba, but it clinched her standing as a bona fide darling of the national (and international) alt-country scene. Writers from No Depression to Rolling Stone cheered her “comeback,” and fans in her adopted hometown voted it “Album of the Year” in the Austin Music Awards.
The six albums Willis has made since What I Deserve have only burnished her reputation as Austin’s reigning queen of Americana. Three of those albums, including 2019’s Beautiful Lie, were duo records made with her now ex-husband, fellow singer-songwriter Bruce Robison — who also produced Willis’ last solo album, 2018’s “richly satisfying” (NPR) Back Being Blue. The couple (who in addition to recording and touring together for years also raised four children together) announced their separation in early 2022, marking both the end of an era and the beginning of yet another “big sea change” for Willis.
Zachary Lucky is unapologetically old-school country, armed with a husky, baritone voice. He sings of Canadian places and people as knowingly as he might Townes Van Zandt or the Rio Grande. Hailed as a master storyteller by No Depression, Zachary is becoming a legend in his own right and has safely reserved his spot at the table of Canadian roots royalty.
Nashville songwriters CJ Solar, Ben Williams, Rick Huckaby, Paul Sikes, & Dave Kuncio sing the hit songs they wrote for superstar artists like Morgan Wallen, Selena Gomez, Lainey Wilson, Ty Dolla $ign, Trace Adkins, Alicia Keys, Government Mule, Megan Maroney, Thomas Rhett, Steve Aioki Justin Moore, Jameson Rodgers, Cody Johnson, Jason Aldean & tell the stories behind them!
Host of the popular roots music history podcast American Songcatcher, Nicholas Edward Williams is a multi-instrumentalist and storyteller who is dedicated to “playing it forward” by preserving the songs and styles that have shaped our country: ragtime, Piedmont blues, traditional folk, old time and early country. Williams has spent the last 15 years touring around the US, the UK, Western Europe and Australia, blending the roots music spectrum in his own style. He’s opened for Taj Mahal, The Wood Brothers, Dom Flemons, CAAMP, John Paul White, Town Mountain, John Craigie, Rachel Baiman and Lucy Daucus, and has performed at festival stages on three continents. William’s debut record As I Go Ramblin’ Around made the International Folk Radio DJ Charts in 2019 with the #6 Top Album, #7 Top Song. His critically acclaimed sophomore release Folk Songs For Old Times’ Sake unveiled in November of 2021 and has been heralded by the likes of Grammy-winning musician David Holt who said: “With tasteful guitar arrangements and a voice that draws you right in, Nicholas’ recordings roll along like a mountain stream.”
With more than 100 million plays on Spotify, Nashville-based singer/songwriter Ira Wolf connects with her audience through intentional vocals and vulnerable lyrics. Ira’s writing is intended to connect listeners to their emotions while creating a space for introspection.
Since she began touring in 2014, Ira has performed on stages across six continents and continues to travel the U.S. while living full time in her beloved camper van.
After stepping away from music for a few years to prioritize her mental health, Ira returned to the studio in 2022 to record her highly anticipated fourth album. Rock Bottom was released in October of 2023 and Ira continues to tour across the U.S. and internationally.
Gerald Dowd has been described as “the hardest working drummer in Chicago” (Richard Milne, WXRT), playing on over 100 albums, and averaging 150 live dates a year around the world. In recent years, he’s been releasing solo albums of original material, starting with his 2012 release, Kingsize EP. In 2014, he was the recipient of an IAP arts grant from Chicago’s Dept. Of Cultural Affairs/Special Events (DCASE), which led to his first full-length solo album, Home Now, produced by Grammy-nominated producer Liam Davis, and featuring, among others, Chicago legends Robbie Fulks and Nora O’Connor.
Born and raised in the Boston area, Mr. Dowd began his musical life at the age of 10. Playing drums throughout high school in rock bands, orchestras and theater companies, he attended the famed Tanglewood Institute in the summers of 1985 and 1986. In 1986, he was accepted into both the Manhattan School of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music as a classical percussionist. He kept his talents near Wollaston Beach, studying jazz and classical percussion with Bob Moses, Fred Buda, Vic Firth and Arthur Press, while also playing in combos led by Mr. Moses, Dave Holland, George Russell, George Garzone and Hankus Netsky. Mr. Dowd continued to play in local rock bands, jazz combos, orchestras and musical theaters until 1991, when he moved to Chicago to attend DePaul University, securing the drum chair in the top big band upon his arrival. Over his 30+ years in Chicago, he has gone on to play with some of the top rock, jazz and country musicians in the area and nationwide.
June and Jonah write for the bands Miss Bones and Poster Colors, respectively, and they also play in each other’s bands, non-respectively. Miss Bones makes indie rock with country and folk influences, Poster Colors makes county and folk with indie rock influences. Both of them love big silly bands like Big Thief, the White Stripes, and Gillian Welch.
Maggie Monroe is a queer Americana artist from North Carolina. By interweaving authentic narratives with catchy melodies, audiences can expect to head home humming along to tales of romance, growing up, and traveling through life’s challenges. A unique blend of country, rock, blues, and bluegrass that makes listeners say, “I don’t usually like country music but…” Monroe is currently Boston based as she studies songwriting, American roots performance, and music production and engineering at Berklee College of Music.
Recorded live to tape in just two days, Robert Ellis’s exquisite new album, Yesterday’s News, is as stripped-down as it gets, with the celebrated songwriter and producer’s delicate, reedy tenor accompanied only by nylon string guitar, upright bass, and the occasional piece of handheld percussion. The arrangements are harmonically sophisticated here, drawing on the open tunings and intricate fingerpicking of English songwriters like Nick Drake or Richard Thompson, and Ellis’s performances are similarly subtle and nuanced, tapping into the bittersweet longing of Chet Baker and the playful poignancy of Bill Evans and Jim Hall.
While that might seem surprising coming off 2019’s raucous Texas Piano Man, subverting expectations is nothing new for Ellis. Born and raised outside Houston, he gained early acclaim for his piercing introspection and absorbing narratives, but over the course of five solo albums, he flirted with everything from Paul Simon and John Prine to Elton John and Joni Mitchell in a series of sonic and visual transformations that ran the gamut from Redneck Steely Dan to Lone Star Liberace. NPR hailed his “musical daring and impeccable songcraft,” while Rolling Stone praised his “sharp eye for storytelling,” and the New York Times lauded his writing as an emotional “gut punch.”
Yesterday’s News marks Ellis’s debut LP for Niles City Records, an outgrowth of the famed Niles City Sound studio he and longtime collaborator Josh Block run in Fort Worth, TX.
