Artist Category: Folk | Page 2

Giovanni Kiyingi

Giovanni Kiyingi, the talented Ugandan folk singer-songwriter and world music artist, captivates audiences worldwide with his extraordinary skills as a multi-instrumentalist. His mastery of diverse instruments such as the local Ugandan Endingidi, Akogo, Adungu, Endere, Djembe, Embuutu, Calabash, Congas, and more, sets him apart in the music industry.

Kiyingi’s mesmerizing performances and soulful vocals have earned him prestigious invitations to share the stage with renowned artists at major music festivals and cooperative events across Uganda and the globe. Notably, he has showcased his artistry alongside luminaries like Tanzania’s Alikiba at the illustrious 2016 Blankets and Wine festival, the enchanting Suzan Kerunen and Herbert Kinobe at the Pearl Rhythm Festival 2012, as well as the exceptional talents of Okello Lawrence and Joel Sebunjo at the remarkable DOADOA 2014.

Kiyingi’s presence infuses these events with a vibrant blend of cultural richness and musical brilliance, leaving audiences spellbound and yearning for more.

Eric Bibb

How does one measure a life? Success, awards, and wealth are conventional metrics, but for Eric Bibb the measure goes deeper—into the questions he poses through his music. With a career spanning five decades, over forty albums, three Grammy nominations, a multitude of Blues Foundation awards and countless more accolades, Bibb has secured his legacy as a legendary figure in the blues and roots genre.

Born into a lineage of activism, Eric’s father, the late Leon Bibb, was a key figure in the civil rights movement, marching alongside Dr. Martin Luther King. Immersed in the Village folk scene during his youth, Eric found inspiration in the visits of luminaries like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Pete Seeger. Influenced deeply by the sounds of Odetta, Richie Havens, and Taj Mahal, he synthesized these elements into a style uniquely his own.

Beyond conventional genres, Bibb is labeled a bluesman, but he defies categorization, seamlessly sliding between musical realms. Grounded in the folk and blues tradition with contemporary sensibilities, Bibb’s music reflects his thoughts on current world events and his own lived experiences, whilst remaining entertaining, uplifting, inspirational and relevant.

Bibb’s catalogue is now over 40 albums strong, with his ethos exemplified in 2023’s Grammy-nominated Ridin’, which drew inspiration from the painting A Ride for Liberty by Eastman Johnson, depicting a Black family fleeing enslavement during the Civil War. His 2024 album In The Real World, recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, has just been released, receiving critical acclaim. Am I the change I long to see? Bibb asks through his music.

As Eric reflects on his musical journey, gratitude pervades. Evolution is evident in his voice and guitar playing, with his words providing grounding in truth and fostering a vision of unity amid a world filled with divisive rhetoric. Eric Bibb is more than a blues troubadour; he is a storyteller and philosopher. His legacy is not just in the notes he plays or the stages he graces but in the questions he poses and the hope he instills.

Alayna Maysie Band

Alayna Maysie is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based out of Boston, MA who writes groovy acoustic songs with ties to both early folk and contemporary popular music. She studied at Berklee College of Music, where she was recently named a Fletcher Bright Award recipient in recognition of her passion for American Roots Music. Her music reflects influences from bluegrass and old time to pop, and her writing connects audiences through emotive storytelling delivered within a blend of genres. Sammy Wetstein, Caleb Swan, and Chandler Harris join Alayna onstage to bring her songs to life, featuring fiery cello solos, sweet vocal harmonies, and delicate mandolin parts that make the music shimmer. Together, their global folk influences paired with Alayna’s pop melodies create a unique and exciting musical experience for listeners.
Alayna’s website

Holly Near

After 50 years of bold work, Holly Near is still one of the most consistent and well informed voices for change. Her work is loving, challenging, funny, thought-provoking, and remains rooted in the global community. As an outspoken singer and ambassador for peace, Holly brings a unique integration of world consciousness and self-evaluation, always growing and sharing experience humbly and boldly.

Holly discovered her unique and recognizable voice at an early age, learning to sign along with recordings of some of the world’s great singers. After graduating high school, Holly attended UCLA but her academic journey ended after just a few months when she was spotted by agents and drawn into the world of film and television. She did guest spots on TV shows like The Partridge Family, Room 222, All in the Family, and played supporting roles in films like John Cassavetes’ Minnie and Moskowitz and George Roy Hill’s Slaughterhouse-Five. She moved to New York and performed for a short run in Hair on Broadway but soon turned to singing full time, as a soloist as well as sharing the stage with her sisters Laurel and Timothy. Throughout her career she has enjoyed collaborations with such artists as Mercedes Sosa, Ronnie Gilbert, Inti Illimani, Emma’s Revolution, and her long-time songwriting partner, the late Jeff Langley.

In her early twenties, Near traveled with the Free The Army Show and the Indochina Peace Campaign; an experience that enabled her to learn about the function and consequences of the military industrial complex. While on the FTA tour in 1971 Holly was first introduced to the concept of global feminism. By 1974 she was crossing paths and sharing songs with the wave of new lesbian feminist performers such as Meg Christian, Cris Williamson, Linda Tillery, Mary Watkins, and Alive! Near dove into the feminist movement, trying to understand the depth of sexism and homophobia by turning those lessons into song

Holly is known for the anthemic quality of some of her songs. As a songwriter she takes up the challenge of turning big concepts into small, personal stories. In response to the slaughter of the students at Kent State, she wrote It Could Have Been Me. And following the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in San Francisco, she penned Singing For Our Lives, which has become an anthem for the LGBTQ community and appears in the Unitarian Church hymnal. The chilling disappearance of people in Chile under the Pinochet dictatorship brought forth Hay Una Mujer Desaparecida to commemorate the women who had “been disappeared.”

In 2019, Near began a website project called Because of a Song, an online historic archive that documents some of the influential artists that rose from the feminist lesbian music scene in Oakland, California. The site can be viewed at www.becauseofasong.com.

A recipient of dozens of awards from organizations such as the ACLU and the National Organization of Women, Holly was one of Ms Magazine’s Women of the Year recipients and has been nominated for Grammys as well as the Legends of Women’s Music Award.

Warren Malone

Warren Malone is originally from Manchester England. His early influences were the classic singers of the 1950s— Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich, and Hank Williams. Soul singers Sam Cooke and Van Morrison also played a huge role in his development, as did folk musicians Norman Blake and Bill Monroe.

His first American home was San Francisco 1993-1998, where after playing every coffee shop/open mic/street corner, he got to make an album “Spit ’n’ Kisses” at famed Russian Hill Recording studio, which included performances from the Tori Amos and Linda Perry bands. That album led to an extended run of shows at the Fillmore between acts like Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Son Volt, and many others.

He has opened for and shared the stage with many folk legends, including Bert Jansch, Rosanne Cash, Chip Taylor, and Louden Wainwright III, and pop stars like David Gray.

TriStar Pictures are currently producing a movie “Mobius” based on his love affair with Astrophysicist Janna Levin, directed by Stephen Moyer (True Blood). The film covers Warren’s time as an illegal immigrant in San Francisco and follows him to England and back to the USA.

Currently living in New York, he has released a string of solo albums including “And the Ants Ate The Bee,” “The Great Big Bubblegum Heartbreak,” and “Whole Life Blues,” which have cemented his place in the New York music scene as a singer with an unparalleled sound and an enthralling storyteller through song.

His new record “JUNKYARD” was produced by Kyle Lacy at Hive Mind Studios with Billy Aukstik engineering. The band did 5 songs directly to tape all within 2 1/2 hours, and final vocals and overdubs were recorded in a second session. 8 of Warren’s newest original songs written since the onset of the pandemic are captured here in a live setting along with his trademark version of the classic blues song “Born Under a Bad Sign.”

Nano Stern

Praised by folk legend Joan Baez as ‘the best young Chilean songwriter of his generation’, Nano Stern stands out as one of the most important Chilean musicians of his time, with a recording career spanning ten years that includes five award winning and critically acclaimed solo albums.

Nano is currently promoting his 9th studio recording Aún creo en la belleza [I still believe in beauty]. With this album Stern searches for the simple and the subtle in the service of poetry made song. Amid a turbulent world, Nano builds a refuge of words and sounds that reflect the worries and calmness of the intense times in which we live.

In 2023, as the world commemorated 50 years since the coup d’état in Chile, Nano Stern revisited the songs of legendary folk singer Víctor Jara with the release Nano Stern Canta A Víctor Jara and tours throughout Europe, North and South America. He also published Décimas del Estallido (a chronicle in Verse of the Chilean Rebellion), produced the documentary “En Septiembre Canta el Gallo” (with Luis Emilio Briceño), that portrays the generation of young people who revolutionized Chilean song from 1958 to 1973; and, with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Concepción, premiered and recorded his first symphonic work “…Hará brotar el momento”.

Nano Stern is a contemporary Latin American roots artist based in Chile. His musical virtuosity, mesmerizing and charismatic live performances, his passionate and poetic advocacy for social justice result in a true and honest universal message, delivered with intense energy and a high level of musicality. Nano is ‘the face and voice of a whole new chapter of the Nueva Cancion Chilena’ (La Nacion, Argentina), Stern is an accomplished musician, playing a range of instruments from Spanish guitars and violin to the Andean and Nordic flutes. Not to be underrated is the power and emotion that emanates from his vocal prowess and his intimate and rousing connection to his audiences, at home in Chile and around the world. He has performed and captivated audiences in countless venues and festivals internationally often collaborating with legendary artists. As per Bill Hauritz Founder/Director of the Woodford Festival in Australia, Stern’s contagious personal energy and his fluency in multiple languages allows Nano to warmly include his international audiences in the stories of his Spanish songs.

Dawn Landes

Dawn Landes is a North Carolina-based singer-songwriter whose music you might have heard if you watch The Good Wife, House or Gossip Girl. Along with releasing seven albums and five EPs since 2005, she’s a frequent collaborator with contemporaries such as Sufjan Stevens, Norah Jones and composer Nico Muhly. She has appeared with the Boston Pops, the NYC Ballet and on the TED main stage. Her musical ROW about fellow Kentucky native Tori Murden McClure’s quest to become the first woman to row across the Atlantic Ocean premiered in 2021 at Williamstown Theatre Festival and is available on Audible. Her latest release is The Liberated Woman’s Songbook, an album of folk songs that leads us through a history of women’s activism from the 1800’s through the high times of Women’s Lib in the 1970’s. The album was produced by her longtime collaborator Josh Kaufman (Bonny Light Horseman) and features guests including Emily Frantz (Watchhouse, formerly Mandolin Orange), Kanene Pipkin (The Lone Bellow) Charly Lowry, Rissi Palmer and Lizzy Ross (Violet Bell).

Peppe Voltarelli

Peppe Voltarelli is a Calabrian singer, songwriter, actor and writer. He has been active since 1990 as the founding voice and leader of Il parto delle nuvole pesanti, a cult Italian new folk band. As a solo artist, he has released seven studio albums, four soundtracks, and two concerts. He won the Targa Tenco three times, with “Ultima notte a Malá Strana” in 2010 as best album in dialect, with “Voltarelli canta Profazio” in 2016, and with “Planetario” in 2021, both as best performer album. He was the lead actor and co-writer of the film “The true legend of Tony Vilar” by Giuseppe Gagliardi, the first Italian mokumentary. He boasts collaborations with Claudio Lolli, Teresa De Sio, Sergio Cammariere, Otello Profazio, Roy Paci, Carmen Consoli, Bandabardò, and Amy Denio. His intense concert activity has led him to play in 23 countries around the world and his records have been released in Europe, Argentina, Canada, and the United States. His latest work, the album “La grande corsa verso Lupionòpolis”, was recorded in New York and published by Visage Music in 2023.

Clara Rose & Raphaella Hero

Clara Rose and Raphaella Hero blend two unique voices into an inseparable whole in their revealing delivery of original music, traditional folk tunes, and improvisation. Their music represents a way of being together with presence, patience, compassion, embodiment, playfulness, and curiosity. These elements are central to the spirit of improvisation which characterizes their musical partnership. With every performance, they offer an invitation to simply be — to put down what you carry, and enter the present moment in the safe embrace of acoustic sound, creative mastery, and grace. Join Clara and Raphaella for their first tour in New England, as they reach out to bring community together, sharing brightness and warmth and at the coldest time of the year.

Josee Vachon

Born in Québec and raised in Maine, Josée Vachon shares her Franco-American upbringing through traditional and contemporary folksongs from Québec and Acadia and through her own compositions.

Though she often entertained at family gatherings, she began singing publicly with the support of the Franco-American Center at the University of Maine, where she discovered others who shared her rich heritage. After receiving her BA in Romance Languages in 1984, she continued to perform, quickly gaining recognition as a new Franco-American voice through early performances at state festivals in Maine and at schools and parish soirées.

In July 1993, she co-founded the folk group Chanterelle with award-winning fiddler Donna Hébert and singer/guitarist Liza Constable, often joined by bass and cajun accordion player Alan Bradbury. The group released the CDs French in America (1994) and Soirée Chez Nous (1996).

Ms Vachon has 12 solo recordings to her credit, and continues to perform and record the music that best represents her love of Franco-American culture.