Artist Category: Roots | Page 3

Rachael Davis

Rachael Davis is felt before she is seen or heard, like a pressure drop or a disturbance in the force. The room suddenly gets…jollier. Peals of uproarious laughter inevitably follow, from her and from those around her. Exclamations of “HOLY CRAP!” descend like little hailstorms of love and mirth. And when she stops telling stories about her beloved family or her crazy life long enough to sing a song, you feel the resonations of her deeply empathetic message deep in your subconscious: this is music for healing, for realizing darkness exists but never letting it run your business. For more than 30 years, starting back with her family band in the north woods of Michigan, for formative years in the Boston music scene, and continuing into the present as a beloved Nashville fixture, Rachael has been weaving orbs of commanding melody, ensnaring enraptured audiences around the nation, whether alone, or with any number of collaborators, including vocal nightingale trio the Sweet Water Warblers, and her husband Dominic John Davis, master of the bass (as opposed to bassmaster). Before you get the impression it’s all fun and games….listen closer. There is a serious dedication to craft in her near-operatic vocals, her guitar work, her banjo scholarship, and her commitment to the language and traditions of folk music, while pushing it to new fresh places.

Rachael Davis recordings are rare in this stage of life, having dedicated more time to both the art of performance and the art of raising her frankly delightful children, but a few have escaped: Minor League Deities (2000), Live In Bremen, Germany (2004), Antebellum Queens (2008), Bandbox Jubilee (2014), plus releases with Shout Sister Shout! (2008) and The Sweet Water Warblers (2020). And, great news, more recordings are coming very soon! A new compilation released in November of 2023 called A Few Good Ones is available now and contains two unreleased songs from about a decade ago that were recently unearthed, and brand new sessions are under way for a long-awaited upcoming release .

The world needs more Rachael Davis music, and Rachael Davis needs more of the world, to put down their sorrows and raise a communal voice in celebration of the hilarious beauty of life. You know how something embarrassing or awful happens, and we say, oh we’ll laugh about it later? Rachael knows life is short: laugh now.

Melo Green

Melo has appeared all over the New England music scene across nearly two decades with Kids On A Hill, The Umass Doo Wop Shop, The Frotations, The Velcro Soul, Freddy and The Yeti’s, and The C.O.M.P.

Melo’s debut album Laminar Flow is all about ease, love, living in the present moment and accepting that just because it looks like we’re frozen in time doesn’t mean we’re not moving through life gracefully.

Nicholas Edward Williams

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.”

Jeffrey Foucault

In two decades on the road Jeffrey Foucault has become one of the most distinctive voices in American music, refining a sound instantly recognizable for its simplicity and emotional power, a decidedly Midwestern amalgam of blues, country, rock’n’roll, and folk. He’s built a brick-and-mortar international touring career on multiple studio albums, countless miles, and general critical acclaim, being lauded for “Stark, literate songs that are as wide open as the landscape of his native Midwest” (The New Yorker), and described as “Quietly brilliant” (The Irish Times), while catching the ear of everyone from Van Dyke Parks to Greil Marcus, to Don Henley, who regularly covers Foucault in his live set. His forthcoming record, The Universal Fire, came out in 2024.

Two Crows for Comfort

Two Crows for Comfort – a duo that had no intentions of playing anything more than an open mic here and there, and went by a different name anytime they hit the stage. Fast forward a few years and Two Crows (Erin Corbin and Cory Sulyma) have unintentionally created something that seems to work.

In December 2018 the duo released their debut full-length album, ‘17 Feet’, and continued playing shows to get through the harsh prairie winter. As summer arrived, so did festival season which meant the Crows couldn’t let the momentum fade. They could be caught at festivals around Manitoba and North West Ontario and even scored opportunities to open for some of the greats, including Ani Di Franco, Bruce Cockburn and Pokey Lafarge. Still not letting up, they left home and took to the road for their first tour of Western Canada.

Back from tour, the duo was welcomed home as the Roots Artist of the Year at the 2019 Manitoba Country Music Awards (an award they took home again in 2021).

They hit the road again in early 2020 making stops throughout Ontario and Quebec before they hunkered down during the pandemic to record their second album ‘Show Me Light’, which was released on March 25, 2021.

With the pandemic finally seeming to be in the rearview mirror, Two Crows took to the road once again – this time permanently. Marrying their passions for travel and music, they now live in their 20 foot camper with their pup, Elliot, playing countless shows across Canada and the US.

The duo is hard at work on their third album, but in the meantime you can find Two Crows for Comfort’s second album, ‘Show Me Light’ on all streaming platforms and Vinyl and CD copies are available for purchase at their live show.

The Blue and Gold

The Blue And Gold is a musical collaboration between folk-roots guitarist / banjo player Trish Klein (The Be Good Tanyas, Frazey Ford, Po’ Girl) and award-winning Blues singer Ndidi O which celebrates the legacy and influence of pioneering female blues musicians.

“The Blue And Gold transport you back to the headwaters of the blues” – Tinnitist – SONG PREMIERE – March 31, 2022

“While Klein’s melodic run takes you into the past with the bluesy traditions, Ndidi O’s vocals slide through the soundscape like honey.” The Other Side Review – April 8, 2022

Micah Nicol

Micah Nicol grew up with a mandolin in one hand and a banjo in the other playing bluegrass and classic country music with his father. Micah has had stints as a semi-professional actor, competitive ballet, tap, jazz and ballroom dancer, and was awarded Best Performer and Best Male Soloist a record six times as part of Singsation, a show choir from Wapakoneta, Ohio. He received his Music Production & Engineering degree from Berklee College of Music as a pianist and now spends most of his musical life as a guitarist and singer for The Ruta Beggars and Bookmatch. Micah has a deep love for musical theater and content creation and lives parallel lives as a magician, uni-cyclist, and clown.

Dan Klingsberg

Dan is an experienced jazz, roots and bluegrass bass player based in Brooklyn, NY. He plays and tours with a number of groups including Mudskippers, PRNCX, Ben Krakauer, and The Ladles. He has performed with Darol Anger, Joe Morris, Peter Rowan, Stuart Duncan, and many others. He graduated from New England Conservatory in 2019.

Jerron Paxton

Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton has earned a reputation for transporting audiences back to the 1920’s and making them wish they could stay there for good. Blind Boy Paxton may be one of the greatest multi-instrumentalists that you have not heard of. Yet. And time is getting short, fast.

Jerron performed to a sold out audience at the Lead Belly Tribute at Carnegie Hall on February 4, 2016 along with Buddy Guy, Eric Burdon, Edgar Winter, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and other stars. It is no exaggeration to say that Paxton made a huge impression. In the two years since his incredible performance at that star-studded show in one of the world’s great concert houses, Paxton’s own star has been rising fast. He opened for Buddy Guy at B.B. Kings in NYC; for Robert Cray at the Reading PA Blues Festival, and performed at numerous other festivals including: Woodford Folk Festival & Byron Bay Blues Festival in Australia; Calgary Folk Festival in Canada; Jewel City Jam in Huntington WV; Freihofers Jazz Festival in Saratoga Springs FL; Clearwater Festival in Croton-on-The Hudson NY; Fayetteville Roots Festival in Fayetteville AR: Cambridge Folk Festival in the UK., Harvest Time Rhythm & Blues Festival in Ireland; and headlined the 2017 Brooklyn Folk Festival.

Jerron Paxton is a two-time participant in the Keeping The Blues Alive Cruise and is the new Artistic Director of the Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Festival & Workshop at Centrum in Port Townsend, WA.

Paxton was featured on CNN’s Great Big Story and appeared in the multi award winning music documentary AMERICAN EPIC produced by Robert Redford, Jack White & T-Bone Burnett. In October and November 2018 Jerron ‘Blind Boy’ Paxton will be touring the U.S. with the musicians from this groundbreaking AMERICAN EPIC SESSIONS music documentary.

This young musician sings and plays banjo, guitar, piano, fiddle, harmonica, Cajun accordion, and the bones (percussion). Paxton has an eerie ability to transform traditional jazz, blues, folk, and country into the here and now, and make it real. In addition, he mesmerizes audiences with his humor and storytelling. He’s a world-class talent and a uniquely colorful character that has been on the cover of Living Blues Magazine and the Village Voice, and has been interviewed on FOX News. Paxton’s sound is influenced by the likes of Fats Waller and “Blind” Lemon Jefferson. According to Will Friedwald in the Wall Street Journal, Paxton is “virtually the only music-maker of his generation—playing guitar, banjo, piano and violin, among other implements—to fully assimilate the blues idiom of the 1920s and ‘30s.”

Laurel Premo

Laurel Premo is known for her rhythmically deep and rapt delivery of roots music on fiddle, guitar, and vocals. Her solo performances dive deep into traditional and new fiddle music, musically revealing a bloom of underlying harmonic drones, minimalist repetition, and rich polyrhythms. Presenting these sounds on finger style electric guitar and fiddle, Premo fully leans in to the archaic melodies and in-between intonations that connect folk sounds to the mystic and unknown.

She is a Michigan-based artist who has been writing, arranging, and touring since 2009 with vocal and instrumental roots acts, and is internationally known from her duo Red Tail Ring. Premo holds a BFA from the Performing Arts Technology Dept. of the University of Michigan School of Music, and has spent half-year stints at both the Sibelius Academy of Music in Helsinki, Finland and the University College of Southeast Norway in Telemark to study traditional music and dance. Important mentors who have helped shape Laurel’s lens in folk arts have been her parents Bette & Dean Premo (fiddle, guitar, and traditional song, Michigan), Joel Mabus (clawhammer banjo, Michigan), Arto Järvelä (fiddle, Finland), and Ånon Egeland (fiddle, Norway). Alongside several continuing music projects, she is active in organizing community events that connect people with folk art and dance.