The 2010 Appalachia in the Bluegrass concert series is generously supported by the Office of the Provost, the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music, the Appalachian Studies Program, and the Appalachian Center of the University of Kentucky.

Over the last few years the Niles Gallery Series has included an exceptional series of noontime performances by outstanding traditional musicians and scholars. This season, the series focuses on “old time music” both old and new with a strong Kentucky heritage.

The Fall 2011 Series

All performances are on Fridays at noon in the John Jacob Niles Gallery, Lucille Little Fine Arts Library, unless otherwise noted.

Phil, Sarah, and Alice Jamison

September 2 - Phil Jamison is nationally-known as a dance caller, musician, and flatfoot dancer. He has called at dances and music festivals throughout the country and overseas since 1975. A longtime member of the Green Grass Cloggers, his flatfoot dancing was featured in the film, Songcatcher, for which he also served as Traditional Dance consultant. Phil is also active as a dance historian. He has written many articles about traditional dancing for the Old-Time Herald magazine, and he is currently working on a book about the history of southern Appalachian dance. Phil lives in Asheville, North Carolina where he teaches Mathematics, Appalachian Music, and Appalachian Studies at Warren Wilson College.

Alice Jamison plays guitar and sings traditional ballads and folksongs Performs Cape Breton step dance and has won blue ribbons in both dancing and folksong at the Mt. Airy Fiddlers’ Convention (NC) and the Appalachian Stringband Festival (WV). She is currently a Senior at Asheville High School.

Sarah Jamison plays banjo and guitar and sings early country music. Currently a student at Warren Wilson College majoring in Environmental Studies.

Lee Sexton and John Haywood

September 9 - A master of the drop-thumb and two-finger banjo style, Lee "Boy" Sexton has lived his whole life near his birthplace in Letcher County, KY. Born in 1927, he acquired his first banjo, a homemade wooden fretless model with a groundhog skin head, for a dollar when he was eight years old (he worked to clear a field for a week to earn that dollar), and with instruction from his father and uncles (one of whom was banjo player Morgan Sexton, winner of the National Heritage Award). Sexton soon mastered the instrument, and the fiddle, as well. As a young man he would work all week in the mines and then play music all weekend at house parties, bean stringings, and corn shuckings. June Appal issued an LP of traditional material, Whoa Mule, in 1988, and an expanded CD version in 2004 with an additional 40 minutes of music. One of the most respected and revered folk musicians in East Kentucky, Sexton garnered a brief scene in the 1980 film Coal Miner's Daughter, where he appears playing at a square dance. In 1999 he was presented with the Kentucky Governor's Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts.

Born in a holler in Eastern Kentucky, John Wezley Haywood saw life differently than children who grew up in more economically developed areas. He lived in a small community called Risner that was named for his Mother’s family. Today, from his home in Knott County, he paints the real Kentucky. His artwork wallows in the stereotypes and pays tribute to lifestyles that make Kentucky and Appalachia one of the most unique and celebrated places in the entire world. The paintings tell stories of hell raising hillbillies, hardened mine workers, mountain musicians, and more.

Haywood currently resides at the head of Little Doubles Creek near Hindman, Kentucky with his wife, Kelli Brooke Haywood, and his daughters Deladis Rose and Ivy Pearl Haywood. John is an award winning old time banjo player currently playing with Rich and the Po'Folk, and the Travelin' Snakes. He also coordinates Appalshop's "Pick and Bow" program.

Don Pedi

September 16 - Don Pedi was born into a musical family in Chelsea Massachusetts. Onweekends, his grandfather, who died before Don was born, would closehis barber shop for business, and open his home in the back as agathering place for family and friends to share homemade food,fellowship and live music. Don's grandfather played guitar, mandolin and banjo. Don's uncle Frank made his living singing and playing music. Another gifted singer is Don's dad. He'll burst into song at the drop of a hat.

Don got involved with the Boston area folk music scene in the early sixties. 1964 was when he first laid eyes on a dulcimer. It was beingplayed by Richard Farina at a liveperformance by Mimi and Richard Farina at the old Unicorn Coffee House in Boston.

The sound of the dulcimer proved most alluring. That night in a conversation with Richard Farina, Don was convinced that someday he would get himself a dulcimer and play it. Contemporary performers like Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Patrick Sky, Joan Baez and others attracted Don to the Newport Folk Festival. While there he was exposed to traditional musicians like Frank Proffitt, Doc Watson, Mississippi John Hurt, Almeda Riddle and such that where a major influence on his musical tastes.

By 1966 Don was traveling a lot. With Cambridge as a base, he lived for various periods of time in different parts of the country. In 1973, while living in the Colorado Rockies, Don met Tad Wright and KeithZimmerman, a couple of musicians from Asheville, NC. After hearing Don play, they invited him to join them. He did, and they piled into Tad's 1969 Volkswagen mini-van and drove to North Carolina.

At first sight of the mountains around Harmon Den and FinesCreek, Don knew he was home. He's pretty much lived in and aroundAsheville from then on. Since settling in Western North Carolina Don has been recognized as the man who could "really play" a dulcimer. He is a pioneer in that his music has broken new ground and cleared a pathfor others. In Don's hands, the dulcimer has been accepted as aninstrument well suited to playing traditional Southern Dance music.This was at a time when most "Old-Time" musicians thought a dulcimershould be hung on a wall with a pretty ribbon.

In 1991 Don and wife Jean moved to a little farm in the mountains of Madison County, North Carolina. The area is rich in traditional musicand customs (neighbors still plow with mules and horses). His mostrecent recording is Stranger on a Mule with acclaimed fiddler Bruce Greene.

Rich and the Po' Folks

September 23 - Rich and the Po' Folks dates to the spring of 2006 when a group of friends got together with a common goal....to build a band on their shared love for the traditional music of east Kentucky and southwest Virginia. Taking their inspiration from some of the jewels of Appalachian music--fiddlers, banjo players, singers, songwriters-- Rich and the Po' Folks take the work of Old Time giants such as Art Stamper, Ed Haley, Charlie Osborne, George Gibson, Addie Graham, and John Morgan Salyer and use fiddle, banjo, bass, mandolin and guitar to kick it up as only a string band can! Their recent CD When the Whistle Blew is one of the finest recordings to come from East Kentucky's coal fields in many a year.

Karly Dawn and Little Sarie

September 30 - Karly Dawn Higgins and Sarah Wood, also known as Karly Dawn and Little Sarie, entertain with a unique blend of vocal harmonies and banjo/guitar picking. Both East Kentucky natives, Karly Dawn and Sarah have ties in Morehead, Kentucky and up the Kentucky/Ohio River Valley. Coming from a mixed musical upbringing rich in bluegrass and old country traditions, this duo was formed from the mutual love of old time music and singing. Their music is influenced by the greats such as Hazel and Alice and The Carter Family and also local legends like George Gibson and Jesse Wells. They draw their inspiration from the people they love, the trials they endure, and the beautiful land they call their home.

Performances by the duo include festivals such as: Berea's Celebration of Traditional Music in Berea Ky, Morehead Old Time Fiddlers Convention in Morehead Ky, MARS Festival in Whitesburg Ky, Chocolate Festival in Old Washington Ky. Available for booking as a two piece banjo/guitar/singing duo or as a full 4 piece string band with bass and fiddle/ mandolin/ steel guitar.

Dan Dutton

October 7 - Dan Dutton says, "I live on a farm in the knobs of Kentucky, USA. My parents were farmers with strong artistic sensibilities. My father was a storyteller and singer who kept a pack of foxhounds especially chosen for their musical voices. This was in the days when the knobs were still a bit wild, and hounds could be loosed to run freely. The fox, my father informed me, was far too clever to be caught by hounds, and played them for fools in his game. He admired foxes and wouldn't have thought of killing one. The hounds lived in a noble state of denial. Fox, hounds, and father; engaged, as he put it, in 'the sport of kings.'

"My mother was a prankster. She told me fairy tales in the oral tradition, freely embellished with subtle intimations aimed at influencing my behavior, and providing us both with amusement and wonder. Some of her pranks have been elaborate and tease the boundary of propriety and reason. I noted this creative freedom from a very early age, and began to mimic it with an aim toward the joy which mastery of such a craft provides. Both of my parents took great delight in song, word-play, curious events, the beauties of nature, and the foibles of humankind. This led me quite naturally to devote my life to art, a decision which I have had no occasion to regret."

Dan composed the operas The Stone Man and The Secret Commonwealth. He is a painter, balladeer, composer, storyteller, and a most untraditional traditional musician.

Jimmy and Ada McCown

October 14 - Jimmy McCown grew up in a musical family on Pond Creek in Pike County, KY. In the late 1940s the area was filled with accomplished banjo players, many of whom played the clawhammer style, a form that plays an important rhythm role in old-time music. Here he also learned to play banjo like his grandfather, Boyd Smith. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, Jimmy went on to master the three-finger bluegrass banjo style. Jimmy and Ada got married and Jimmy taught Ada to play guitar. They had their own Bluegrass band from 1968-2003, recording 6 albums and touring the U.S. and Canada. In 1977 Jimmy added an extra string to make his banjo a 6 string banjo. "During that time," Jimmy says, "I never lost sight of the mountain music of my childhood." Jimmy explored some unique methods within the clawhammer style—methods he recalled from his grandfather and learned from other old-time banjo legends—to develop his own distinguished sound.

"I also play fiddle, and I could never accept the fact that the banjo had to be a ‘back up’ instrument. So, I began trying to play the melody to the songs and realized this wasn’t possible without dropping my thumb into the scale." He has become identified with this style of melodic drop-thumb playing, that his grandfather called "double note" banjo.

Jimmy has been on the faculty of Banjo Camp North, and he and Ada have taught at the Cowan Creek Mountain Music School in Whitesburg, KY and at the Hindman Settlement School, Hindman, KY. Jimmy has a collection of ribbons and has 2 old time banjo CDs to his credit. Jimmy and Ada have also recorded a fiddle CD dedicated to masters of the old East Kentucky style. They’ve performed at the Appalshop Banjo Days, the Carter Family Fold in Hilton’s, VA, and the Kentucky Folk Life Festival as well as the Old Songs Festival in Albany, NY, and the festival of American Fiddle Songs in Port Townsend, WA. Jimmy has been a master traditional artist in the Kentucky Arts Council, Folk and Traditional Arts Apprenticeship program.

Carl Jones and James Bryan

October 21 - Carl Jones says, "I was bitten by the old time music "bug" in the 1970's while attending the University of North Alabama and traveling more and more to festivals around the southeast. During this time I played mandolin and sang in The Mud Road String Band; a local bluegrass group in Florence, Alabama. I bought a mandolin on the way up for my first day of school and befriended the band at orientation. Turns out their mandolin player was moving away and they had a bunch of gigs so I was quickly enlisted. Taking breaks in public on an unfamiliar instrument -- a sure fire way to improve quickly -- through repeated humiliation!

"At many of those early festivals I was enthralled by the graceful fiddling of James Bryan and the music he made with Norman and Nancy Blake. I remember arriving at the Horse Pens 40 Festival (in Alabama) very late on a week-end due to car trouble. So flustered and bent out of shape, I happened to wander over to a hill where James, Norman, and Nancy were warming up for a set soon to come. I never will forget how powerful their amazing, stately and mellow rendition of a slow air—Jameson’s Favorite was (mandolin, fiddle and cello). By the time they played the final notes I was happy and calm without a care in the world. That moment has always stayed with me. Their approach, respect and knowledge of the music they played inspired me greatly. Later, I was fortunate to tour with them as part of The Rising Fawn String Ensemble in the early 80's."

James Bryan is considered by many to be the best traditional Southern fiddler playing today. Born in 1953 and raised in Boaz, Alabama, James began playing fiddle at the age of eleven. He was encouraged by his father Joe Bryan who played guitar, taught James his first tunes, and introduced him to area fiddlers such as Monk Daniels and members of the Johnson family. James and his father played at local radio stations, dances, and fiddle conventions. In 1970, at the age of sixteen, James won the title of Fiddle King at the Tennessee Valley Old Time Fiddler's Convention in Athens Alabama. Three years later in 1973 he won it again. He has served as a master artist with the Alabama State Council on the Arts apprenticeship program and continues to perform at festivals, concerts, dances, fiddle camps, and workshops. In recent years the "Festival of American Fiddle Tunes," the "Augusta Heritage Center" old-time week, the "Swannanoa Gathering" old-time week and the annual "Breaking up Winter" music retreat have featured James in their programs. He has received the honor of membership in the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.

Cari Norris

October 28 - Cari Norris’ music stems from the traditions of her grandmother, the late Lily May Ledford, original leader of the first all-women string band in radio, The Coon Creek Girls. Cari performs ancient ballads as well as original songs on guitar, clawhammer banjo, and mountain dulcimer. She has studied with master Appalachian musicians such as Jean Ritchie, Lee Sexton, Rich Kirby, and Sue Massek. Cari has appeared all over Kentucky, surrounding states, and in New England at festivals, concerts, teaching workshops and school programs. She has been featured on several Kentucky Educational Television programs such as "Kentucky Life," "Mixed Media," and "Jubilee," in which she performed with Jean Ritchie.

Being rocked to sleep as a child by the plaintive Kentucky mountain ballads of her grandmother forever marked her musical sensibilities with what has been described as the "lonesome mountain sound." Cari has produced three solo recordings, Morning and Night, Cari’s Old Christmas, and In and Out of the Garden." She co-produced the widely acclaimed solo recording of Lily May Ledford entitled, Gems, which is available on June Appal Records.

Sara Grey and Kieron Means

November 4 - Sara grew up in New Hampshire but has lived in North Carolina, Ohio, Montana, New York, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wales, Scotland and England. As a youngster in North Carolina she first heard a lot of mountain music and her love for the old time banjo music and songs developed from this experience. She has carried this interest into her adult life studying folklore and collecting and performing music from the various areas in which she has lived.

Now, after many years of singing and playing her banjo in public, Sara's repertoire is as fresh and relevant as ever. She has been concentrating for the last several years on tracing the migration for songs from the British Isles to North America. Sara lives for her music and works at her trade with the result that her music is not only technically excellent but also filled with her warmth and spirit.

Sara has sung at over 150 folk clubs in England, Scotland and Wales and has performed at over 60 different folk and bluegrass festivals. She has appeared on BBC-TV Scotland and with the McCalmans on Grampian Television. She has toured abroad in Belgium, Bermuda, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Norway, Lithuania, Australia and the USA.

Sara is from the States but has been living in Scotland and briefly in England for the last 38 years. She has always been interested in the migration of songs across the Atlantic and it was as a result of a collecting trip to Scotland in1970 that she moved to the UK. She has been working closely with other traditional singers from Scotland and Ireland to look at the movement of Celtic songs and how they change.

Kieron Means is a singer primarily of traditional songs but also of contemporary songs and guitar player of great merit. He has a great rapport with an audience and has an exceptional professionalism for a young performer. His voice is as smooth as silk, rich and mellow and he sings to his audience not in spite of them.

Kieron is the son of the traditional singer Sara Grey and music journalist Andrew Means, one time writer for Melody Maker. He was born in the United States and grew up in Britain gaining a great love of the music of both traditions as well as the contemporary scene. He has become a performer of traditional songs from the US and from the UK and many of the contemporary songs he sings he has written himself.

He has toured in the States and often performed with Sara Grey. In 2000 he has performed at Whitby and Wadebridge festivals where he was received with much acclaim. His first CD has received much praise with air play on Travelling Folk and Mr Anderson's Fine Tunes, both on radio Scotland.

Aubrey Atwater and Elwood Donnelly

November 7 (Monday) - The highly acclaimed husband-wife duo, Aubrey Atwater and Elwood Donnelly, present delightful programs of traditional American and Celtic folk songs, a capella pieces, old-time gospel songs, dance tunes, and original works. Elwood and Aubrey blend gorgeous and unusual harmonies and play guitar, Appalachian mountain dulcimer, mandolin, tin whistle, harmonica, banjo, bones, spoons, limberjacks, and other surprises including Appalachian clog dancing, French Canadian footwork, and Tap.

Aubrey and Elwood met as volunteers at the Stone Soup Coffeehouse in Providence in early 1987. Within just a few months these self-taught musicians from Rhode Island formed a duo. Married since 1989, Aubrey and Elwood perform throughout the United States and, on occasion, abroad. Their ten recordings receive international airplay. Highlights include airplay on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," Fiona Ritchie's "Thistle and Shamrock," and the nationally syndicated "Midnight Special" out of Chicago.

Atwater and Donnelly have performed and researched traditional folk music and dance in Appalachia, the Ozarks, New England, and other key places in the United States, as well as Ireland, England and Prince Edward Island. They have performed with or shared festival billing with folk legends Jean Ritchie, Pete Seeger, and Doc Watson.

Al White and the Berea Bluegrass Ensemble

November 11 - The Berea College Bluegrass Ensemble was founded in the fall of 1999 to give Berea College students with backgrounds or potential in bluegrass music an opportunity to play in a bluegrass band with weekly rehearsals, performances and travel. The group's founder, Al White, has performed professionally with many bluegrass bands including the Bluegrass Alliance and the McLain Family Band, and teaches Appalachian instruments at Berea College. Members are selected by audition, and typically remain with the group until they graduate from Berea College. Members also earn academic credit for each semester of participation in the group. The band's recent tour of Japan marked its second visit there, the first being in 2006. The Bluegrass Ensemble toured Ireland in 2004 and 2007. The group performs for many functions at Berea College and has also performed at Campbell Folk School in North Carolina, and at East Tennessee State University. Their new CD Live (recorded live at Grey Auditorium at Berea College) was recently released.

Randy Wilson and Gabe Dansereau

November 18 - Randy Wilson, is Folk Arts Education Program Director at the Hindman Settlement School in Knott County, KY. In addition to being an accomplished songwriter, performer, storyteller and dance-caller, Randy has a knack for teaching young people the traditional songs, dances and stories of Appalachia and engaging them in telling and performing their own stories.

Randy currently works with public school students in Knott County as well as providing Folk Arts programming for the county's senior citizens center, nursing home, a rehab center and a preschool. He has served as Folk Artist in Residence in Leslie and Knott County Schools, taught core curriculum in Humanities and led cultural exchanges with multi-racial urban schools. His Kid's Radio productions are broadcast on WMMT 88.7 FM out of Whitesburg, KY. He has performed at numerous venues in the U.S. and has recorded several CDs.

Randy is also active in representing the Appalachian region in a variety of cultural exchanges, working with Appalshop and appearing at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC. He performs with his son, Gabe, a fine fiddler and guitarist who plays regularly at the Carcassonne Square Dance Gabe is a high school student.

Red State Ramblers

December 2 - The music of the Red State Ramblers features native and adopted Kentuckians playing Kentucky tunes and songs that resonate with the truth of life lived close to the font from which this music springs. Will and Jeff grew up in the Bluegrass State, while Nikos and Kevin were inevitably drawn to the Commonwealth several years ago. This is old time music, a music that sings of the old ways in a new way that remains brilliantly alive. Old time music is the garden of delights that raised a progressive crop of genres that flowered as swing, bluegrass, rockabilly, and country. Old time music is the true vine that some folks continue to cherish, and pass on as precious heirlooms, a gift of the past to nourish us in the future.

The Ramblers, Will Bacon (banjo and kazoo), Kevin Kehrberg (bass, guitar), Jeff Keith (mandolin and guitar), and Nikos Pappas (fiddle) recently released their second recording, Commonwealth based on traditional music of Kentucky and in 2008 the band was a finalist in the string band competition at Clifftop Old Time String Band Festival. Presently Jeff Keith and Dr. Kevin Kehrberg serve as professors at Warren Wilson College, Nikos Pappas is completing his Ph.D. in Musicology at the University of Kentucky, and Will Bacon is the owner of the celebrated contracting firm, BaConstruction. This performance is a special reunion of the Ramblers who have traveled a "fur piece" to reunite at the Niles Gallery in order to close out the series as they have every year since "Appalachia in the Bluegrass" has been presented at the Niles Gallery.