Artist Category: Folk | Page 9

Willi Carlisle

Willi Carlisle is a poet and a folk singer for the people. Like his hero Utah Phillips, Carlisle’s extraordinary gift for turning a phrase isn’t about high falutin’ pontificatin’; it’s about looking out for one another and connecting through our shared human condition. On his anticipated second album, the magnum opus Peculiar, Missouri, Carlisle makes the case across twelve epic tracks that love truly can conquer all.

Born and raised on the Midwestern plains, Carlisle is a product of the punk to folk music pipeline that’s long fueled frustrated young men looking to resist. After falling for the rich ballads and tunes of the Ozarks, where he now lives, he began examining the full spectrum of American musical history. This insatiable stylistic diversity is obvious on Peculiar, Missouri which was produced by Grammy-winning engineer and Cajun musician Joel Savoy in rural Louisiana. The songs range from sardonic trucker songs like “Vanlife” to the heartbreaking queer waltz “Life on the Fence.” The album also imbues class consciousness in songs like “Este Mundo,” a cowboy border ballad about water rights, and the title track’s existential talkin’ blues about a surreal panic attack in Walmart’s aisle five. Though Carlisle’s poetic words evoke the mystical American storytelling of Whitman, Sandburg, and e e cummings, ultimately this is bonafide populist folk music in the tradition of cowboys, frontier fiddlers, and tall-tale tellers. Carlisle recognizes that the only thing holding us back from greatness is each other. With Peculiar, Missouri, he brings us one step closer to breaking down our divides.

The Pairs

This internationally touring band of celebrated songwriters greet every stage with a genuine, quirky presence and unbottled chemistry. Their sibling harmonies and familial banter quickly connects them to their audience. Whether The Pairs are playing an intimate house concert or a sold out show at a Performing Arts Centre, these classically trained vocalists make it their mission to employ three-part harmony and honest storytelling as the mighty tools that soften and connect us. The Pairs will release their fourth studio album in spring 2025. This record aims to encapsulate the authentic, minimalistic, and acoustic style performances the trio has become known for.

Buskin & Batteau

Buskin & Batteau have been winning hearts and minds with their soulful acoustic balladry and fun-filled performances for more years than they care to remember.

“We’re not from the Cambridge, came-over-on-the-Mayflower first wave of folkies [ Joan Baez, Tom Rush, Eric Von Schmidt ],” says Buskin, “but we’d like to think we’ve stolen many of their licks.”

The Washington Post called their work “an irresistible amalgam of melodic, sensual pop, folkie grit and killer wit.” And while their humor runs the gamut from topical irony (“Second Homeless”) to terminal silliness (“Jews Don’t Camp”), it’s their unique combination of instrumental virtuosity (piano and violin, primarily, though both play other instruments as well), soaring vocal harmonies and unparalleled lyric-writing that prompts the standing ovations and rhapsodic reviews: “The most musically sophisticated act in folk” –The New York Times; “Acoustic Heaven” – The Boston Globe. And with the help of the late, great uber-percussionist Marshal Rosenberg, they managed to kick the rhythm pretty hard for a couple of seasoned troubadours.

Famous in the eighties as superstar jingle writers –Batteau’s “Heartbeat of America” heads a list of a hundred or more hits — they’ve also divided their time between writing songs for other artists — e.g., Judy Collins, Tom Rush, Astrud Gilberto, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Peter, Paul and Mary and Bette Midler; helping a diverse group of non-profits — Paul Newman’s Hole-In-The-Wall Camps, Harry Chapin’s WhyHunger, Roger Payne’s Ocean Alliance, among others; and hosting their quirky, unpredictable Radio B&B show on WPKN-FM and WPKN.org. Their latest CD, Love Remembered, Love Forgot, was recorded at Neale Eckstein’s Fox Run Studios in Sudbury, MA, features some delightful guest appearances.

Robin Lane

“Though Blondie’s Deborah Harry and the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde have had more hits and better press, Robin Lane looms large as the most talented female artist to come out of New Wave Rock.” – Geoffrey Himes, The Washington Post

Whether arena- rockin’, rockin’ the cradle with a lullaby or, most often, somewhere in between, she invests each syllable with the entirety of her authentic, guileless, wide-open heart. To listen to Lane is to hear an all-revealing, all-giving friend.”— Paul McComas, Shepherd Express
Robin Lane grew up in Los Angeles and was a Valley Girl before there were actual “valley girls.” During high school, Robin became immersed in the music scene and the alternative lifestyle of the late 60’s and was inspired to write her own songs. She began informal collaborations with the band Crazy Horse. This association led to her more formal debut – singing with Neil Young on his album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

Robin left LA behind, moving to Boston in the late 70’s. In Boston’s environment of cultural and intellectual experimentation, Robin integrated punk and new wave influences, West Coast folk, and East Coast rock in her songs and her band — the legendary Robin Lane and The Chartbusters. The band included ex-Modern Lovers Asa Brebner and Leroy Radcliffe, who infected Lane’s songs and sensibilities even further with their garage rock sound.

Robin Lane and the Chartbusters recorded three albums for Warner Brothers Records: Robin Lane and the Chartbusters (1980), the live EP 5 Live, and Imitation Life (1981). Two singles from her first album, “When Things Go Wrong” and “Why Do You Tell Lies?” received extensive national airplay. The New Rolling Stone Record Guide gave the first album a prestigious four-star rating. “When Things Go Wrong” became the 11th music video played on MTV on its first broadcast day in 1981.

In late 2021, Robin signed with indie label Red on Red Records, a cool new imprint out of Boston featuring Americana, powerpop, punk, and alt-rock music, focused on supporting strong women creators. Label owner Justine Covault says, “Robin writes unflinchingly honest songs that reflect the light and the dark in the world. Her voice is distinctive and gorgeous. And she is absolutely riveting as a live performer — when she plays and sings, the audience is spellbound. I’m honored and thrilled that she is joining the Red on Red roster family.” Robin’s song All I’ll Ever Need has been released as a single and Hard Life from the new Dirt Road To Heaven album will be released as a single July 28, as well as the Dirt Road To Heaven album itself.

Aaron Smith

Aaron Smith is a man on a mission, but he’s no preacher. His songs hold a mirror to the mystery of human experience, searching for the meaning of home, love, family, aging, kindness, doubt, faith, and grace. In vignettes injected with an infectious and persistent sense of hope and humor, the unlikely heroes of his songs — grandmothers and grandfathers, street preachers and neighbors, the forgotten and lonely — find courage, salvation and more than a few laughs in the everyday.

He’s been featured many times on Rich Warren’s Midnight Special radio show, and KUAF Fayetteville’s Ozarks at Large. Aaron’s songcraft has earned him recognition as a winner (2019) in the nationally renowned New Folk songwriting competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas. He also won the BMG Songwriter Showcase at the Power of Music Festival in Bentonville Arkansas and was featured in an official showcase at Americanafest in London in 2020. His first album The Way the World Turns was released in 2015. His album The Legend of Sam Davis is due in late 2022 and includes includes a coffee-table book with essays, maps, artwork and family photos.

Darrell Scott

Multi-Instrumentalist and Singer-Songwriter Darrell Scott mines and cultivates the everyday moment, taking the rote, menial, mundane, and allowing it to be surreal, ever poignant, and candidly honest, lilting, blooming, and resonating. The words he fosters allow us to make sense of the world, what is at stake here, and our place in it. And ultimately, Darrell knows the sole truth of life is that love is all that matters, that we don’t always get it right, but that’s the instinctive and requisite circuitous allure of things, why we forever chase it, and why it is held sacred.

Darrell Scott comes from a musical family with a father who had him smitten with guitars by the age of 4, alongside a brother who played Jerry Reed style as well. From there, things only ramped up with literature and poetry endeavors while a student at Tufts University, along with playing his way through life. This would never change.

After recently touring with Robert Plant and the Zac Brown Band (2 years with each), and producing albums for Malcolm Holcomb and Guy Clark and being named “songwriter of the year” for both ASCAP and NSAI, these days ﬁnd him roaming his Tennessee wilderness acreage hiking along the small river, creating delicious meals with food raised on his property and playing music. He often leads songwriting workshops to help people tell their own truths with their stories, and is as busy as always writing, producing, performing, and just plain fully immersing himself in life.

Nora Brown & Stephanie Coleman

Nora Brown started learning music at the age of 6 from the late Shlomo Pestcoe. From his studio apartment in Brooklyn, Pestcoe instilled in her the belief that music is meant to be shared. Nora plays old-time traditional music with a particular interest in eastern Kentucky and Tennessee banjo playing. Along with the banjo and guitar she also sings traditional unaccompanied ballads from southeast Appalachia and beyond.

In October 2019 Jalopy Records released Nora’s first album of 11 traditional songs and tunes called Cinnamon Tree. It was produced by the legendary Alice Gerrard and pressed by Third Man Pressing in Detroit. It’s only available on limited edition vinyl with a digital download and liner notes. Cinnamon Tree landed #7 on the Billboard Bluegrass Chartsthe 2nd week of its release.

In September 2021 Jalopy Records released Nora’s EP of 7 traditional songs and tunes called Sidetrack My Engine. It was recorded in mono in underground brick arched space in Brooklyn NY. Using an Ampex tape machine and vintage RCA ribbon mics from BigTone Records. 10” vinyl Pressed by United Record Pressing in Nashville.

Nora plays solo regularly and also as duet with fiddler Stephanie Coleman and fiddler Jackson Lynch.

Kathleen Parks

Kathleen Parks is a fiddler, singer, and songwriter who brings joyful and creative energy to the stage and studio. For the last 10 years, she has been heavily involved in touring and recording with her Americana/Jamgrass band Twisted Pine, where she sings, writes, and fiddles. On her upcoming solo album, her captivating songs lean more toward Pop, Folk, and classic Jazz, while her virtuosic fiddle blends and reimagines traditional and modern musical styles with boundless groove and playful improvisational spirit. Her deep grounding in Celtic and American roots music combines with her love for pop songwriting, soulful vocals, and groove-based improvisation, making every KP performance unexpected yet familiar: a musical journey from beginning to end. Over the years, Parks has shared the stage with artists such as Paula Cole, Sammy Rae & The Friends, Gordon Lightfoot, Aoife O’Donovan, The Punch Brothers, Jerry Douglas, and Sierra Hull.

Coltt Winter Lepley

Originally from Bedford, PA, Coltt is an Appalachian songwriter, folksinger, published poet and author, and folklorist. He is currently attending Emerson College in Boston, MA as an MFA candidate in their fiction program.

Hannah O’Brien & Grant Flick

Hannah O’Brien and Grant Flick play a mix of original compositions and traditional pieces from various fiddling traditions. Initially connecting at the University of Michigan, they found common ground despite coming from different backgrounds with Hannah from Classical and Irish fiddling and Grant from American improvisational idioms. In 2021 they released their first duo record, Windward, and look forward to releasing their second record Unmatched Pair in August 2024.

The duo has received multiple prizes including the Binkow Chamber Music Grant, U-M Excel Enterprise Grant, and the Club Passim Iguana Music Fund, as well as participating in the Honeywell Arts Resonance Week as Festival Artists.

While the duo feels at home on double fiddle, they also change instrumentation incorporating tenor guitar and nyckelharpa. Their musical interests are broad and as a result, their programs showcase an eclectic assemblage of repertoire.