Doug & Telisha Williams
Hometown: Martinsville, Virginia
Genres: Americana, Folk
Website: www.dandtw.com

Doug and Telisha Williams embody the true Southern songwriting tradition. Playing what they call Fuel Injected Folk, this husband and wife duo hail from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Their roots are real, their words are true, and their energy is contagious.

Honest grit mingled with a humble respect comes through in songs of redemption, struggle and sacrifice on their new record Rope Around my Heart. Doug and Telisha gathered a stellar group of musicians to lend their talents, including Darrell Scott, Dennis Crouch, Kenny Malone, Eamon McLoughlin and Becki Williams. The project was produced, recorded, mixed and mastered by Miles Wilkinson.
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Trent Summar & The New Row Mob
Hometown: Nashville, TN
Genres: Americana, Country, Farm Rock
Website: www.trentsummarmusic.com

Not that labels in music matter much — at least they shouldn’t — but Trent Summar has an evocative and altogether hard-to-resist term for the music he makes: Farm rock.

That probably says it well enough. But in case further explanation helps, we’re talking about that intersection where Chuck Berry rock and George Jones country converge. We’re talking about love songs that veer off the beaten path with honest slices of rural imagery and humor.

It’s a place on the musical map that’s entirely familiar but just a little too rowdy, a little too much fun (and in truth, too rooted in tradition) to be called mainstream country

If you’ve heard Summar’s 2000 debut album, the critically acclaimed Trent Summar & The New Row Mob, or seen his raucous live act in recent years, you may already be a staunch farm rock adherent.

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Pure Prairie League
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Genres: Americana, Country, Rock
Website: www.pureprairieleague.com

Their rich history goes back to 1969 in the Southern Ohio area where a group of young musicians initially played cover tunes at local bars. Original member Craig Fuller and early member George Powell were beginning to stir their song writing abilities around the time original drummer Tom McGail happened to catch a late night 1939 Errol Flyn flick called Dodge City. The movie’s Pure Prairie League was the woman’s temperance union attempting to clean up Kansas’ most lawless town. RCA signed Pure Prairie League after seeing them play in Cleveland, Ohio. The first album was released the following year. The most memorable thing about it was the Norman Rockwell cover from a 1927 Saturday Evening Post cover, ” recalls Mike Reilly. (more…)

Dallas Wayne
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Genres: Americana, Country
Website: www.dallaswayne.com

Sirius program host Dallas Wayne will be your festival tour guide on Friday - Outlaw Country night! www.siriusradio.com/outlawcountry Listen to Dallas live on Sirius 63 weekdays noon-4pm ET.

Dallas Wayne considers himself lucky to be able to make a living doing something he loves. Some people might say it has more to do with talent than luck. But throughout a career that has taken Dallas around the world as a songwriter, singer, actor and radio deejay, he claims he’s never had a real job.

A native of Springfield, Missouri, Dallas began performing professionally in 1975, and by the age of 18 he had toured throughout the entire U.S. and Canada. After moving to Nashville, he further developed his vocal style singing demos for many of the top publishing houses in the music industry.

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Buzz Cason
Hometown: Nashville
Genres: Americana, Rock, Singer/Songwriter
Website: www.buzzcason.com

As 2007 arrived, Buzz Cason was the only songwriter credited with cuts by pop icons, the Beatles, Pearl Jam and U2 – not to mention Martina McBride, Gloria Estefan, Jan & Dean, The Derailers, Placido Domingo and even the Oak Ridge Boys. And it all started because of girls.

In 1956, Buzz (then an Inglewood, TN teenager) was given the opportunity to lip-synch “White Christmas” on the Noel Ball Saturday Showcase, a local talent show on WSIX-TV (ABC). Reluctant to delve into a television musical, Jim Seymore, a fellow art student organizing the show told him, “It’ll be fun and there’ll be lots of girls there!” Buzz did enjoy himself and afterwards met other musicians at the television station to later form a band they named The Casuals. Generally recognized as Nashville’s first rock-n-roll band, The Casual’s first album also launched Buzz’s songwriting career with, “My Love Song For You,” co-written with band-mate Richard Williams. By 1957, The Casuals had become a national touring act, replacing The Everly Brothers on a tour of 60 fair dates.

During this same period, Buzz met Bobby Russell, an aspiring writer at the old Globe Recording Studio in Nashville located above Mom’s Tavern (now Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge) and the two began to co-write. At the urging and support of Gary Walker of Lowery Music, they wrote and recorded “Tennessee” as a studio group, The Todds. The song was covered in ‘58 by Jan and Dean, their first Hot 100 record on the BILLBOARD chart, and thus an association of more than 25 years began. Prior to moving to California, Buzz wrote another Todd’s single with Russell, “Popsicle,” which went on to become another Top 20 record for Jan and Dean in 1963.
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Walt Wilkins & The Mystiqueros

Hometown: Austin, Texas
Genres: Americana, Rock, Country
Website: www.waltwilkins.com

CMT.com’s Top 10 Artist for 2007!

“If there is a better songwriter on the planet, I’m not aware of it.” - Pat Green

“Walt Wilkins is the salt of the earth. He writes like it. He sings like it. He acts like it.” - Jack Ingram

San Antonio-born Walt Wilkins has been called a genius, more than once, and a writer the caliber of John Steinbeck and his voice as comfortable as a pair of old blue jeans, and he is, and has, all of that. His crafting of story-songs, hard-edged vocals to sing them and a plaintive guitar have made him a fixture of the Texas music scene (and Nashville before that). He’s put his magical touch on recordings by new and veteran artists, too many to count.

Is he near done? Hasn’t he done it all? Double hell no.

With The Mystiqueros, Wilkins has created something of a “Texas Hill Country super-group” that features five great singers and four great songwriters from the heart of the Lone Star State, all of whom have made their own records and are flush with recording credits.

Onstage and in the studio, Wilkins is joined by Bill Small (bass, percussion, acoustic guitar), John M. Greenberg (electric guitars), Ramon Rodriguez (drums, percussion) and Marcus Eldridge (electric guitars). Live performances around Texas are being likened to both outlaw country and classic rock bands, and they’re captured on Diamonds in the Sun on Palo Duro Records.

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Charlie Louvin
Residence: Nashville
Hometown: Henager, Alabama
Genres: Americana, Singer/Songwriter, Country
Website: www.charlielouvinbros.com

2008 Grammy Award Nominee!

The term “living legend” gets thrown around quite a bit, but it actually applies to Country Music Hall of Famer Charlie Louvin.

The magical harmonies and depth of feeling found on Louvin Brothers recordings of the 50’s and 60’s inspired a new generation of musicians, firmly establishing the Louvins’ stature as one of the most influential duos in country music history.

In 2006, the Tompkins Square label reached out to Charlie about making his first new studio album in over ten years. They enlisted Mark Nevers, who engineered sessions for many top country artists, and produced Calexico, Lambchop, Candi Staton among others. Guests on the album include Elvis Costello, George Jones, Jeff Tweedy, Will Oldham, Tom T. Hall, Tift Merritt, Marty Stuart, Bobby Bare Sr., David Kilgour, members of Bright Eyes, Lambchop, Clem Snide, Superchunk and more.

Louvin enjoyed the experience. “Mark Nevers is one of the best engineers I’ve ever worked with. My brother and I cut our teeth on some of those old songs and they influenced us tremendously. I’m glad we’re able to remind people of them.”

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Elizabeth Cook
Hometown: Nashville, TN
Genres: Americana, Country
Website: www.elizabeth-cook.com

In contemporary country music, it’s a rare performer who will dare to take on the industry on her own hogs-and-kisses terms. But for the artist whom Nanci Griffith has called “this generation’s Loretta Lynn,” it takes a certain tenacity to meld smart attitude with classic tradition, the credibility of a life lived with genuine hillbilly passion, and the integrity to write an acclaimed cache of uncommonly cool songs. In other words, for Elizabeth Cook, it takes balls.

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Michael Johnathon
Hometown: Lexington, Kentucky
Genre: Folk, Singer/Songwriter
Website: www.woodsongs.com

We are pleased to announce that folk singer/author Michael Johnathon will be both performing his musical craft and hosting Woodsongs Sunday at Chattahippie, which will feature a wide and ecelect mix of folk and roots music throughout the day.

Every Monday night, musical history is made as the Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour begins its regular radio and television broadcast at the Kentucky Theatre. Tour buses deliver visitors from faraway places; crowds scramble for good seats. Volunteers wearing black shirts finish their sound checks and adjust their cameras.

The house is packed as stage lights dim. Michael Johnathon comes onstage and introduces himself as a folksinger, songwriter and tree hugger. What he doesn’t say is he’s also a playwright, producer, author and touring artist. Johnathon has a worldwide radio audience exceeding a million listeners each week. He also created the world’s first multi-camera weekly series broadcast on the Internet.

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Gary Nicholson

Residence: Nashville
Hometown: Garland, Texas
Genres: Americana, Singer/Songwriter, Country, Blues, Rock
Website: www.garynicholson.com

A 2006 nominee for the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Gary Nicholson has had more than 350 of his songs recorded, has won 26 ASCAP songwriting awards and is responsible for more than a dozen major hits. Unlike most tunesmiths, he is not bound by musical genre. His songs routinely top the country hit parade. But rock bands, blues artists, folk stars and bluegrass acts have also embraced him as a songwriter.

“I’ve never found it difficult to ’shift gears’ between different musical styles,” Nicholson says. “I let myself be dictated by the needs of the artist or of the writer I’m collaborating with. A lot of these guys are just looking for good lyrics. Songwriting is songwriting. A song is a song.”

As a guitarist, Gary Nicholson has brightened recording sessions and/or concert stages with the likes of Guy Clark, Billy Joe Shaver, Bobby Bare, Delbert McClinton and Tracy Nelson. During his long career, he has also played lead guitar in at least 10 of his own bands.

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