Gillian Welch & David Rawlings at CaveFest

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings is the musical partnership of American songwriter and singer Gillian Welch and guitarist David Rawlings. Gillian Welch's musical style combines elements of bluegrass, neotraditional country, Americana, old time string band music and folk into a rustic style that she dubs "American Primitive". Her music is often described as haunting or soothing. Welch, who was born in Manhattan, NYC, moved to Boston and studied at the Berklee College of Music. In Boston, Welch met David Rawlings, who would become her longtime musical partner, at a successful audition for Berklee's only country band. In 1992, Welch moved to Nashville and began building a career and Rawlings soon followed. Welch and Rawlings have collaborated on a series of critically acclaimed albums, some released under Welch's name, some released under Rawlings' name, and some under both of their names. The pair released the single "Pass You By " in 1996 and the album "All The Good Times (Are Past & Gone)" in 2020.

Rising Appalachia is an American musical group led by multi-instrumentalist sisters Leah Smith and Chloe Smith. The group brings to the world new sounds, stories, and songs collected across oceans and originally sculpted to embody our human journey, our global community, and the treasures and troves of soul harmony. Listen to their beautiful sound for poetic harmonies, soul singing, spoken word rallies, banjos, fiddles, organic bass and groove rhythms, and community building through SOUND. With an array of incredible collaborators, they are joined by everything from jazz trumpet to beat boxing, Afro-cuban percussion to Appalachian fiddlers, poets to burlesque and circus art as their style redefines performance using sound as a tool to spark a cultural revolution and birth a new movement of unity and healing. Having toured across the United States and graced many stages around the world, Rising Appalachia’s vision and sound is contagious to everyone it touches. Their shows have included an array of community-run venues and collective events, as well as the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, National Public Radio All Songs Considered, Georgia Public Broadcasting, The School of Americas Vigil, Nunez Arts Festival New Orleans, Emory University Schwartz Center, The Floyd Festival, Burning Man, Envision Festival, The Naropa Institute, The Beacon Theater NYC, The Lake Eden Arts Festival, Radio Popular Italy, Guerilla Radio Amsterdam, The Edinburgh and New Orleans Fringe Festival, The Highlander Center 75th Reunion, and many more. Their prolific self-sculpted career has included five independently-released full length albums have sculpted a path for the new generation of music aficionados and created a new lens to understand the impact of global sound on the world at large. Having been raised in the American South with Appalachian lullabies at night and soul music for breakfast, sisters Leah and Chloe have drawn great inspiration from their global and local community. Their mother and father claimed art and music as a full part of their lives and thus the sisters have been shaped by the sounds of the South. They have continued to use those powerful roots to find musical connections and community around the world.. “Music is the tool with which we wield political prowess. Melody for the Roots of each of us…spreading song and sound around the globe. Music has become our script for vision… not just for aural pleasure, not just for hobby-but now as a means to connect and create in ways that we aren’t taught by mainstream culture…we are building community and tackling social injustice through melody- making the stage reach out with octopus arms to gather a great family. It is taking its own personality, carrying us all along the journey down the damp and strange alley ways and cryptic coded pathways… to poetic observations, social change, lyrical messages, political rage, symphonic coercing, ferocious bantering, bicycles and train tracks, primal will, fresh air intoxicants, harmony and alliteration, noise and something sweeter than words can ever touch. ” Leah Song. Rising Appalachia were voted “Green Album of the Year” by the Huffington Post and Atlanta’s Best Folk Act by the Creative Loafing, and have been written up in Paste Magazine, The New York Times, The Performer Magazine, Dirty Linen, Sing Out, Georgia Public Broadcasting, Anti-Gravity, Maverick and more. Their tours have taken them across Europe, through the Caribbean, into Central America, into the Indian subcontinent, and across the United States making sacred sounds and elaborate stages wherever they go. They are creatively committed to keeping their work accessible at the local street level as well as expanding to larger audiences abroad, and have continued to maintain autonomy by self- managing, recording, producing and creating, and directing their work. They are greatly honored to do the work that they do. Tradebit: MP3 Rising Appalachia - Leah and Chloe Official Website: Rising Appalachia

Keller & The Keels is a bluegrass project of American musician Keller Williams and the husband and wife combo of Larry Keel and Jenny Keel. The trio released "Grass" in 2006, a collection of both original and cover songs. They released "Thief", an album of cover songs, in May 2010. The album, "Pick", with The Travelin McCoury's, was released in July 2012. Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Keller Williams is literally a one-man jam band. His fascinating live shows feature him solo on-stage with a Gibson Echoplex Digital Pro looping unit, and he creates his backing loops in the moment, building and improvising as he goes on his custom-made ten-string guitar, and thanks to his equally as quirky, upbeat, and semi-surreal songs (which he frequently weaves into extended, half-improvised medleys) and his warm, friendly tenor singing voice, Williams is an utterly unique performer whose musical eccentricities don't keep him from being immediately accessible. A native of Virginia, Williams received his first guitar at the age of three, although he admits he didn't really learn to play it until he was in his early teens. He attended high school in his hometown of Fredericksburg, and began playing solo gigs when he was 17. He discovered the new age guitar genius of Michael Hedges a year or so later, and Hedges has been a lifelong influence on Williams' approach to the guitar. Following a stint at college (he attended Virginia Wesleyan College in Virginia Beach from 1988 to 1991, majoring in theater) and frequent gigs in his hometown region, he self-released a debut album, Freek, in 1994. Williams relocated to Colorado the following year, and it was there where he met the members of the progressive bluegrass band String Cheese Incident at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Williams ended up touring with the group as an opening act in 1997 and again in 1998, even filling in for a time as their bass player. A second solo album, Buzz, was released in 1996. Williams eventually signed to String Cheese Incident's label, SCI Fidelity, and released Spun in 1998. Incredibly prolific, Williams has released nearly an album a year ever since on SCI, all with one word titles. Breathe appeared in 1999, Loop in 2001, Laugh in 2002, Dance and Home in 2003, Stage in 2004, and Sight in 2005.

Lindsay Lou is an American singer-songwriter and indie folk musician. She began performing bluegrass music professionally in 2009 with The Flatbellys in Lansing, Michigan. The band issued Release Your Shrouds in 2012, and their second album Ionia three years later. In 2018 Lou released the acclaimed Southland, and followed that up with the critically lauded Queen of Time in 2023.

Airshow is a high-flying jamband that’s sure to soar to the top of every music fans priority list. Originally formed in Reading, PA, best friends, Steve Gallagher (guitar) and Cody Chelius (mandolin), spread their wings and migrated to Nashville, TN in 2015. There they met Bill Baker (bass) and John Rodrigue (drums) and started their ascension towards the top of Nashville’s jamband scene.

HuDost is a Music ensemble whose core musicians are singer/songwriters Moksha Sommer and Jemal Wade Hines from Montreal and New York. What commenced as an acoustic duo project has developed into a fully produced ensemble with Dan Walters on bass, John de Kadt on percussion, George Tortorelli on flutes, Linda Worster on vocals and guitar, and other occasional guests. The ensemble functions as a collective, bringing in musicians of varying sensibilities and backgrounds. HuDost's original work ranges in style from 'Alternative World Music' to their own 'Country and Eastern' fusion, and atmospheric, experimental sound. This is mixed with the rich, eclectic blending of traditional Sufi music, Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian and Balkan folk music, Farsi, Turkish, Arabic, Folk, Pop, Rock and Southern Gospel. HuDost performances range from the duo of Moksha and Jemal Wade to the full ensemble mode, which includes performance art, video installation and dance. Their debut CD, titled 'In an Eastern Rose Garden', was released in 2005 and received rave reviews. CDBaby says about HuDost's debut album: "These beautiful atmospheric, warm and resonant songs weave the evocative… With stylistic colors of folk, new age and pop presented with the colorful harmonic vocabulary of the East, this gentle album delicately pairs the two art forms with great success." In a recent review of Seedling CHRONOGRAM Magazine said "HuDost, from Lebanon, New York, has a folk quality yet is quite post-modern; the band offers new takes on ancient words and melodies, cross-cultural hybrid transcendental chill-out music with an edge. (The album will even be agreeable to those whose spiritual music is punk.)… This is not fluffy new-age music. It's serious, complex fare with no aversion to addressing agony. Sommer's vocal execution is precisely orchestrated, her voice-opening, hollow-toned vortexes piercing through the tough spots. This album is a journey of music and spirit." HuDost has toured Europe and performed extensively on the east coast including shows at Alex Grey's CoSM in NYC, the Salvador Dali Museum, Omega Institute, Rumi Festival at the Carborro Arts Center, and the Shakori Grassroots Festival. They have opened for the California Guitar Trio and worked with Mercan Dede and Neko Case. They have just returned from touring Turkey, Germany and several cities in Europe. HuDost's album 'Seedling', published by Open Sesame Music, was released September 2006 and their most recent album 'Unfinished' was released August, 2007 and is a collection of b-sides and rare tracks. They have been touring the US constantly since April, 2006. They will be starting their new album March 2008 with grammy award winning producer Malcolm Burn (Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan, Daniel Lanois).