Instructor Alumni
Nick Amodeo
Nick Amodeo has been playing and teaching mandolin, as well as bluegrass, blues, rock, fingerstyle and country guitar, for close to 20 years. He’s the 2005 Rockygrass mandolin contest winner, and has performed as a sideman for celebrated artists such as Otis Taylor and Mollie O’Brien.
Nick was featured on Downbeat Magazine’s 2007 Blues Album of the Year; Otis’s “Definition of a Circle” and has toured throughout North America and Europe, sharing the stage with such legends (and personal heroes) as Buddy Guy, Charlie Musselwhite, Chuck Campbell, Ron Miles and Andy Stein, to name a few.
He’s recently released his new self-titled EP featuring Matt Flinner (on banjo!), Ross Martin, Coleman Smith and Ian Hutchinson.
Nick has taught at Naropa University and Swallow Hill Music School, and is currently a popular instructor on Jamplay.com. (Last update 2018)
Paul Anastasio
Paul Anastasio began playing classical violin at age nine and was soon drawn to American Folk music. In his early 20s Paul began studying with the great jazz violinist Joe Venuti, and is considered to be one of the foremost authorities on Venuti’s passionate, swinging approach to jazz violin. At about the same time he began working on the road in the band of country music legend Merle Haggard, the first of several jobs he would work with top western swing and country music bands including Asleep at the Wheel, Larry Gatlin, Ray Price, Mel Tillis and Loretta Lynn.
Today Paul is considered not only a fine performer but a respected popular music historian, as he has spent over thirty years studying the role of the violin in American popular music. He has studied informally with some of the best fiddlers on the music scene, including country and western swing legends Cliff Bruner, Joe Holley, Johnny Gimble and Buddy Spicher. He recently spent over a year in Mexico studying with top folk violinists including the phenomenal Mexican violinist Juan Reynoso. His recording company, Swing Cat Enterprises, has issued both his own recordings and those of Joe Venuti and others.
Paul is in great demand as an instructor at summer music camps throughout the U.S. He writes a regular column for Fiddler Magazine and teaches privately. (Last update 2018)
Kathy Barwick
Since 1978, Kathy Barwick has taught private lessons, group lessons, and is a sought-after music camp instructor. She’s a regular—and very popular—columnist for Flatpicking Guitar Magazine.
Kathy’s approach focuses on providing students with the tools to learn recorded solos by ear, create their own arrangements, and ultimately improvise. Kathy’s ability to break down both technique and theory in the service of playing traditional music has resulted in many “aha” moments for her students. She plays and teaches a host of instruments including banjo, Dobro (resonator guitar), lap steel, guitar, bass, and mandolin. With over 30 years of experience playing folk, bluegrass, blues, country blues, and Irish music, she’s earned a reputation as a musician’s musician.
Kathy has played with the Mountain Laurel Bluegrass Band, The Bluegrass Philharmonic and The All Girl Boys, and she’s toured with The All Girl Boys, Bill Grant & Delia Bell, and Brad Davis. She’s the guitarist in the duo Barwick and Siegfried and has recently released her second solo recording, “Braeburn.” (Last update 2018)
Steve Baughman
Steve Baughman (“boffman”) is an attorney, fingerstyle guitarist and banjo player; we’re pretty sure he works as a musician to support the whole attorney thing. He hasn’t taught any law classes for us, but taught us about fingerstyle playing and his approach to clawhammer banjo. Of his Farewell to Orkney album, Acoustic Guitar magazine said “Once in a while an album comes along that can alter your thinking about guitar music – Steve Baughman’s Farewell to Orkney is one of those….A must for all lovers of guitar and especially Celtic music.”
He’s taught at many, many camps throughout the US, and it’s a reasonable bet that he’s the only person who has taught Orkney tuning in Chinese.
There’s a whole lot more we could say, but his own bio is much more entertaining. (Last update 2018)
Stephen Bennett
Whether playing his great-grandfather’s harp guitar, his 1930 National Steel or a standard 6-string, Stephen Bennett is a guitarist to hear. His playing has won awards and critical praise. In live performance and on record, his diverse musical influences and interests are joined with a lifelong love affair with the sound of guitar strings.
Stephen Bennett was born in Oregon, grew up in New York and has lived in Virginia for the better part of the last three decades. Since his 1987 first-place win at the National Flatpicking Championship, he has become known as a versatile fingerstyle and flatpicking guitarist who consistently garners critical praise and audience enthusiasm for his recordings and live performances.
Stephen has been teaching a limited number of private lessons since 1982. He’s taught at many camps, both in flatpicking and fingerstyle playing. His sessions are known as highly interactive; Stephen gets people playing, rather than sitting there listening to him talk about playing. (Last update 2018)
Cary Black
Cary Black is a bassist, teacher, vocalist, and producer. Described by Alan Senauke in Sing Out! magazine as “a musician’s musician,” Cary is at home in a wide variety of musical settings.
His performance and recording credits include work with Laurindo Almeida, Ernestine Anderson, Tex Beneke, The Boys of the Lough, Bob Crosby, Nokie Edwards, Dan Hicks, The Kingston Trio, Laurie Lewis, Rose Maddox, Mollie O’Brien, Eddie Pennington, Johnny Ray, Kay Starr, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Ernie Watts, and Claude “Fiddler” Williams.
Cary has toured extensively, appearing at festivals and concerts throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. He has made numerous radio appearances including the Grand Ole Opry and A Prairie Home Companion; and he has performed on the PBS, ABC, Fox, and TNN television networks. During the period when Cary played and sang with Laurie Lewis and Grant Street, the band was awarded the Song of the Year and Entertainers of the Year honors by the International Bluegrass Music Association.
Cary taught music theory and improvisation for six years at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, and has taught upright bass for over twenty years at the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop. He has also taught bass at the California Coast Music Camp, Greater Yellowstone Music Camp, Bluegrass at the Beach, B.C. Bluegrass Workshop, Sound Acoustic Music Camp, and Wintergrass Academy. (Last update 2018)
Rolly Brown
Rolly Brown, over a “long and checkered” musical career, has been a solo performer, sideman, studio musician, radio producer, and teacher. Actually, “teacher” should be at the front of that list, because he’s always teaching: in his videos, at camps, workshops, privately, and to anyone who approaches him at a festival.
His musical passions have included folk, blues, jazz, swing, bluegrass, and original fingerstyle guitar. He’s adept at both fingerpicking and flatpicking. He is particularly known for his clear, concise teaching style.
Rolly is also—still—a student. After winning the National Finger Style Guitar Championship in 1980, he went back to his home near Philadelphia feeling pretty good. Some friends took him out to a jazz club to celebrate shortly after, and he heard a guitarist whose playing convinced him that “I didn’t know anything.” After thirty-plus years, he’s still learning, still growing and still sharing with others his love for the guitar.
He’s constantly putting new teaching materials out there; click here for a boatload of videos he’s done over the years.
Rolly has recently recorded several instructional videos for Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop; see an interview with him, with some great playing interspersed, here. (Last update 2018)
The Canote Brothers
Twin brothers Greg and Jere Canote have been taking advantage of their genetics for as long as they can remember; as Christmas elves tap dancing their way around the wishing well in the first grade, to their thirteen-year stint as the affable side-kicks on NPR’s Sandy Bradley’s Potluck.
These guys love what they do, and it shows. Equally at home on a blazing hot fiddle tune or soaring into the clouds with a scat-singing swing solo, the twins know their stuff inside out and perform with an affable friendly approach that invites you into their genetically matched world.
The Canotes demonstrate their love and mastery of vintage American styles from fiddle tunes and country songs to novelty numbers and swing. They perform with spirit, humor, sterling musicianship, and those genetically matched voices.
They’ve taught and performed at a wide variety of stages, festivals and camps including A Prairie Home Companion, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, the Carter Family Fold in Hilton, VA, and many more.
Besides performing, Greg and Jere run a steady slate of classes, workshops and jams in Seattle, and are known for their fun, patient and supportive approach to playing. (Last update 2018)
Connie Castro
Connie Castro has taught adults and children for over 35 years, and for the past 15, she’s operated a private music studio in Colorado Springs, with emphasis on contemporary vocal technique training and performance coaching for tone-shy beginners, injured singers, and seasoned professionals.
Growing up in a musical family, Connie’s first public performance was at age 3, singing “How Much is That Doggie in the Window”. She was smiling so hard that her dad worried she would fall off the stage. From that point on, she sang for church, school and community events. At age 15, Connie won the Miss Talent award in an honest to gosh beauty pageant singing an Edgar Winter rock ballad for a crowd more familiar with Julie Andrews. Then it was off to college coffeehouses, session vocals, conferences, piano bars and corporate events. (Last update 2018)
Susan Cattaneo
Susan Cattaneo is one of Boston’s most respected songwriters. Respectful of tradition, but not bound by it, Susan blends rock, folk and blues with a healthy dose of country. Call it New England Americana with a twang.
Susan’s latest project, The Hammer and The Heart is a double album with an electric side and an acoustic side. The album charted at #1 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart. Her single “Work Hard Love Harder” was the #1 song on Folk Radio in August and the album was a top 5 Folk Radio Album. The album has also been nominated for five Independent Music Awards including Best Country Album, Best Producer and Best Acoustic Single. The album reflects her love for collaboration the record features 40 local and national artists including Mark Erelli, The Bottle Rockets, Bill Kirchen, Jennifer Kimball, Dennis Brennan and Jenee Halstead just to name a few.
Over the past three years, she was an Emerging Artist at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival and a finalist or winner at some of the country’s most prestigious songwriting and music contests including: Kerrville’s New Folk Contest, the Philadelphia Songwriters Project and at the Wildflower Festival Songwriters Contest, the International Acoustic Music Awards, the Independent Music Awards, the 5 Unsigned Only Song Contest, the USA Songwriting Competition, the Mountain Stage New Song Contest and the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest.
Susan has also been teaching songwriting at the Berklee College of Music for over 15 years and performed all over New England with Western Mass trio The Boxcar Lilies.
In 2000, Connie developed vocal cord paresis from a viral infection, complicated by burst blood vessels in the larynx from incorrect treatment. Her 3-year recovery path gave her a PhD from the School of Hard Knocks; hence her love for working with injured singers to regain their voices.
In addition to private lessons, Connie coaches singers for auditions and recording sessions, and has taught a host of singing workshops including A Crash Course in Good Singing-The 5+ Techniques Every Singer Needs to Master, Beginning Harmony; Intermediate Harmony; Advanced A Cappella Singing, Music Theory and Sight Singing, Awaken Your Voice for shy or injured speakers and singers, Fearless and Free Expression On Stage and Off Performance Workshop, and several courses in Essential Breathing. (Last update 2018)
David Coe
David Coe began playing fiddle in southern Oklahoma where he was born and raised. The music that he was drawn to was not the “contest” style of that region but old time Appalachian tunes as well as traditional Irish fiddling. This interest led him to play in bluegrass bands at festivals around Oklahoma, and later in country dance bands around Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. In the late 1970s he met and began touring with nationally-known country artist Michael Martin Murphey, and continued into the 2000s. Together they have played venues from Carnegie Hall to the Grand Ole Opry with many TV shows, studio recordings and live concerts along the way. David concurrently pursued his interest in Irish music, eventually making his way to Ireland and studying at the prestigious “Guinness School of Musicology” (i.e. playing in pubs with great local Irish musicians).
In the late 1980s David moved to Nashville where he has kept up a steady schedule of touring and recording. He began playing with the Nashville Irish band The Rogues in the 1990’s in addition to doing his own regular performances and workshops at the Country Music Hall of Fame. David has recorded several CD’s of fiddle music over the years in styles ranging from bluegrass, to Irish, to Appalachian. He has taught private fiddle lessons for over 20 years. He also teaches Irish fiddle and improvisation at Texas State University Strings Camp. David lives in Nashville and continues to share his love of fiddle music wherever he goes. (Last update 2018)
Shane Cook
Canadian Shane Cook “rates at the top of the short list of the finest fiddlers in the world today,” according to the Canadian Fiddlers’ Hall of Fame. Shane has distinguished himself as a master of the Canadian old-time fiddle tradition and excels at an array of fiddle styles ranging from Irish and Scottish to French-Canadian, Texan, and Bluegrass. After a recent concert at The Boston Opera House, the Boston Herald proclaimed “Shane Cook’s Celtic fiddling was enough to break hearts.”
In 2006, Shane retired from competitive fiddling as one of Canada’s most highly awarded fiddlers. He is a three-time Canadian Open National Fiddle Champion, a three-time Canadian Grand Masters Fiddle Champion, a Grand North American Fiddle Champion, and is the only Canadian to have ever won the US Grand National Fiddle Championship, a feat he accomplished at just 17 years of age.
In concert, Shane captivates audiences with his danceable playing that is as adventurous as it is technically thrilling. He has toured Canada, United States, Germany, England, China and Taiwan, and has performed his show with several orchestras. Shane is a member of the PBS hit show Bowfire – a showcase featuring some of the leading names in modern violin playing, and is also a member of The Brian Pickell Band – a collection of Canadian virtuosos of traditional music. Shane has a new duo CD with East Coast Music Award winner Troy MacGillivray and also leads his own band with whom he has recently released his fourth solo CD that the London Free Press describes as “Relaxed, sprightly…and brilliantly played.” (Last update 2018)
John Corzine
John Corzine has been part of the southern California acoustic music scene for more than 40 years. Festivals and contests, Disneyland and dance floors, coffee houses and concert halls — John has performed throughout the southland, having gathered a collection of some of the best bluegrass, old-time, country and folk music you’ll find. Influenced and inspired for life by meeting Doc Watson at age of 9 years old, John spent his early years in local flatpicking and clawhammer banjo contests and began performing bluegrass and old-time music professionally shortly thereafter. John performed and toured with Philo/Flying Fish recording artists Jim Ringer and Mary McCaslin, and was featured on Mary’s A Life and Time album.
John has played in many area bands over the years, often with his wife Peggy Corzine on bass and vocals. John and Peggy currently perform with their youngest son Cody as the Corzines, and you can hear him this summer with the Coyote Brothers at the California Bluegrass Association’s Father’s Day Festival in Grass Valley, CA. John comes to Camp for the first time this year to share his teaching and performing experience in the use of the guitar as a lead instrument, as the rhythmic foundation in a bluegrass and old-time band setting, and as the melodic and complementary background to vocal performance. (Last update 2021)
Joe Craven
After 40 years in the biz, Joe Craven wears a lot of hats; instrumentalist, vocalist, producer, actor, storyteller, visual artist, noisemaker, fashion insultant, former museologist and creativity educator. He enjoys ‘playing forward’ folk tradition and process by mashing ideas and sound tools from a variety of unexpected places creating new music altogether.
As a multi-instrumentalist, Joe has made music with Jerry Garcia, David Lindley, Alison Brown, Howard Levy, Vassar Clements, Rob Ickes and many other innovative artists. As an award-winning educator, Joe has taught with jazz vocalist Inga Swearengen, bassist Victor Wooten, children’s music innovator Paul Reisler and jazz percussionist Jason Marsalis and he’s been a featured artist/educator in the PBS television Music Gone Public series. Joe has also created music and sound effects for commercials, soundtracks, computer games and contributions to several Grammy-nominated projects.
He’s presented at over 500 schools, universities, music camps and the American String Teachers Association. Joe is a keynote clinician at Wintergrass in Seattle and a coast-to-coast Master of Ceremonies, having emcee-ed at a wide variety of music festivals, including DelFest, Grand Targhee and Telluride Bluegrass. A recipient of a Folk Alliance Far-West Performer of the Year Award and the Swannanoa Gathering’s Master Music Maker Award. From Carnegie Hall to street corner busking around the world and back – Joe’s at home and loving every minute. David Grisman shared the following about Joe: “Everything Joe touches turns to music.” (Last update 2023)
Brad Davis
Brad has toured and recorded since 1983, and he makes that broad and deep experience available to students wherever he teaches. He’s played with Marty Stuart, Earl Scruggs, Sweethearts of the Rodeo, Willie Nelson, Pam Tillis, Dwight Yoakam, Steve Earle, Travis Tritt, Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow, Warren Zevon, Joe Diffie, Mark Chestnutt, Billy Bob Thornton, Sam Bush and many others. He’s appeared on the David Letterman show, Tonight with Jay Leno, Good Morning America and many other shows.
He’s published twelve books on playing; a broad collection ranging from ear training to blues to acoustic speed picking and country and rock guitar, and many places in between. As if that’s not enough, Brad has been a columnist for Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, has made two solo albums and is, plainly speaking, one of the hottest guitarists in the country today. (Last update 2018)
Julie Davis
Julie Davis has long been at the heart of Denver’s folk music scene, such that at Swallow Hill, the second largest folk music school in the nation is now known as the Julie Davis School of Music.
Julie has been bringing music to people’s lives for most of her own. Harry Tuft, the patriarch of Denver folk music, says that “Julie was the second employee of the Folklore Center, and the youngest.” At age fourteen, she and Harry struck a deal: he’d teach her intermediate guitar; in return, she’d teach a beginner class for him. Over forty years later, she’s still teaching and making a difference through music.
Besides performing, Julie teaches guitar, recorder, pennywhistle, flute, autoharp, and beginning piano, and offers group classes on guitar, singing, storytelling, ensembles, and performing. (Last update 2018)
Jack Devereux
Born into an artistic family in Western North Carolina, Jack Devereux was drawn to music at a young age. Inspired by the Old Time fiddling, singing and guitar playing of his grandfather, Arthur Jenkins, and summer time visits to his father’s family in Ireland, Jack immersed himself deeply in the musical traditions of the Southern Appalachian Mountains and the British Isles.
Beginning with the fiddle, later adding the uilleann pipes and guitar, Jack quickly established himself as one of the premier young players on the traditional music scene. He has appeared on stage with such luminaries as Liz Carroll, Bruce Molsky, Darol Anger, Tommy Peoples, and the band Altan. Jack can be heard on the latest recording by Irish guitar virtuoso John Doyle, Shadow and Light, alongside master players Stuart Duncan, Tim O’Brien and others.
Jack is a recent graduate of The Berklee College of Music, where he was the recipient of the Fletcher Bright Scholarship for Strings. At Berklee, Jack had the opportunity to study with players such as John McGann, Darol Anger, Matt Glaser and Jamey Haddad. While at Berklee, Jack has worked closely with Matt Glaser as the student work-study for the American Roots Music Department, helping to develop curriculum for this newly instituted program. (Last update 2018)
Pat Donohue
From swing to jazz to bottleneck blues to folk, Grammy-winning acoustic guitarist Pat Donohue plays it all with a flourish of artistry and melodic inspiration. Chet Atkins called Pat one of the greatest finger pickers in the world today; Leo Kottke called his playing “haunting.”
Pat is certainly one of the most listened-to finger pickers in the world. For many years, as the guitarist for the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band of A Prairie Home Companion, Pat showed off his savvy licks and distinctive original songs to millions of listeners each week.
Russell Letson of Fingerstyle Guitar magazine said, “Behind the great chops and wide-ranging tastes stands another skill that gives Donohue his individual voice: arranging. He displays a smooth, swinging assurance. His arrangement of High Society is an encyclopedia of techniques and licks that will repay working through it.”
For the past 25 years, besides playing on A Prairie Home Companion, touring and performances in his St. Paul/Minneapolis area, Pat has taught private lessons, at camps and festival workshops, and he’s highly regarded as a clinician. (Last update 2018)
Mike Dowling
When the late, great Vassar Clements heard Mike Dowling play guitar back in 1975, he did the sensible thing. He hired him. Clements called him simply “One of the finest guitarists there is, anywhere.”
Grammy-winning guitarist Mike Dowling draws inspiration from deep in the musical bag of American roots guitar. He’s firmly grounded in authenticity and possessed of a musical soul as old as the vintage music he favors. Fluent in several styles and difficult to pigeonhole, Mike has captured the hearts of acoustic music fans throughout the world with his voice, wit, and elegant interpretations of old blues, swing, ragtime, and original compositions.
After many years in Nashville, Mike now runs his own Wind River Guitar School—and flyfishes—in Dubois, Wyoming. He’s a favorite at many camps around the US, teaching fingerstyle guitar, bottleneck blues, improvisation, swing and a host of techniques. (Last update 2018)
Craig Duncan
Craig Duncan is an active Nashville musician fluent in both country and classical styles. He began his study of the violin when he was eight and holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Appalachian State University. His performance experience includes the Grand Ole Opry, the Porter Wagoner Show, and TV specials with various country and bluegrass artists.
Craig has written over 54 instructional books including many of the best-known titles on fiddling, including his You Can Teach Yourself Fiddling, Deluxe Fiddling Method, Top Fiddle Solos, and Advanced Fiddling.
Craig has been the featured instrumentalist on over fifty record albums, with sales of over five million. He is a member of the National Fiddler’s Hall of Fame and Who’s Who in Music and Musicians and is recognized internationally for his numerous books and arrangements of fiddle music. He has produced numerous recordings in a variety of musical styles. He is active in the Nashville music industry as an instrumentalist, contractor, producer and arranger. In addition to his performance activities, he is also Adjunct Professor of Fiddle at the Belmont School of Music in Nashville, Tennessee. He is actively involved in carrying on the tradition of American fiddling and is engaged in research, writing, and teaching in this field. (Last update 2018)
Randy Elmore
Randy Elmore, known as one the most versatile fiddle players in the country, began his professional career at age 20, traveling the United States and Europe. His versatility and superb execution can take him with ease from playing bluegrass to western swing music, and he’s equally at home playing jazz, gospel, or classical music. His repertoire is vast and amazes even the best of his fellow musicians in his field. Randy has toured and recorded with Reba McEntire, Mel Tillis and Red Steagall.
Randy has recorded six albums and played on over 140 albums for other performers, including Willie Nelson’s 2006 recording You Don’t Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker. Randy has won the World Fiddling Championship twice, is six-time Texas State Fiddling Champion, and has taken first place in over 500 fiddle contests.
In appreciation for all the great fiddlers who took their time to help him grow, Randy also has a heart to pass down the tradition of fiddle music to all who love and appreciate it, and to inspire those who haven’t quite made up their minds yet. He has helped hundreds of fiddlers improve their art at his own fiddle camp, and at fiddle camps in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Tennessee, Oregon, California, Nebraska, New Mexico and Colorado, alongside other great fiddlers such as Johnny Gimble and Mark O’Connor. (Last update 2018)
Marla Fibish
A San Francisco native, Marla Fibish is a long-time feature of the Bay Area Irish music scene and an unapologetic advocate for the mandolin in Irish music. She is a dynamic performer and a sought-after teacher. In addition to the mandolin, Marla plays mandola, tenor guitar, bouzouki, and button accordion. (She had the singular honor to be featured as Miss March in the 2011 Accordion Babes Pin-up Calendar.) She also sings and writes music, and is known for her musical settings of works from a variety of poets.
Marla’s main musical endeavor is the duo Noctambule, a collaboration with her husband, guitarist Bruce Victor. Their first album, Travel in the Shadows, is mostly songs, and nearly all original material — poetry that they have set to music and arranged for their bevy of stringed instruments.
in 2011, Marla released a CD with legendary Irish singer and bouzouki player Jimmy Crowley called The Morning Star. This project features Irish music on an array of mandolin-family instruments. Prior to that she released an album in 2010 with the trio Three Mile Stone, with fiddler Erin Shrader and guitar/tenor banjo player Richard Mandel.
Marla teaches privately and in group classes and has taught at a host of music camps. (Last update 2018)
Dave Firestine
Dave pulls out the “take no prisoners” style of playing at every dance – bringing the tunes to their full potential and beyond. He is a tune-meister and music jams are super fun when he is in the driver’s seat.
Originally a drummer, his strong sense of rhythm and syncopation is the foundation of his playing and tune writing, and truthfully he is never happier than when he gets to pull out the laptop drum kit to back swing and honky tonk tunes. Don’t worry, he can access his sensitive side when playing waltzes and beautiful melodies. (Last update 2022)
Dave is a music vagrant retiree now, but before that, he was Senior Gyzmologist building lightning detection systems. He is currently playing with the dance bands STEAM! (www.dancetosteam.com) and The Privy Tippers.
Rose Flanagan
Rose Conway Flanagan originally began Irish music lessons with Martin Mulvihill while growing up in the Bronx. She then further developed her New York Sligo style of fiddling with the help of family friend and mentor Martin Wynne and her brother Brian Conway. Rose was recently inducted into the Mid Atlantic Region Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann Hall of Fame alongside her father Jim and her brother Brian.
She currently teaches in her hometown of Pearl River, New York, where she is hard at work preparing the next generation of great traditional musicians, which include several All-Ireland winners and medalists. Among Rose’s past students are all the fiddlers in Girsa and senior fiddle champion Dylan Foley.
Rose has been an instructor at the Alaska fiddle camp, The Catskills Irish Arts week, The Swannanoa Celtic Gathering, The O’Flaherty Irish Music Retreat, Fiddle and Pick Irish Camp in Pegram Tn., The Baltimore Trad Weekend and Mad for Trad week in the U.S. She has also taught at the DeDanaan Dance Camp in Vancouver, British Columbia and Scoile Eigse in Cavan, and Sligo Ireland. She has also taught workshops at the Northeast Tional, Cape Cod Ceili Weekend and at various CCE conventions. Rose also runs seisuns, plays with her group the Green Gates Ceili Band and performs in various concerts throughout the area.
Rose recently released a duo CD with flute player Laura Byrne from Baltimore, “Forget Me Not”, which was met with great reviews. (Last update 2018)
BepPe Gambetta
He’s an Italian musician in love with our roots music. He starts with what we think of as “our” songs, such as Norman Blake’s Church Street Blues, or the traditional East Virginia Blues; soon they become new creations infused with the soul of someone who hears with different ears, plays with transcendent technique, and makes a true new music. He entertains with his smile and his humor, but what we remember is his clean, powerful, fluid, creative crosspicking technique, and his singing, how he delivers a song such that you hear the words again as if for the first time.
He lives about half the year in the US (he told us “we bought a house in New Jersey; people say ‘so you’re trying to get away from the Italian Mafia by moving to New Jersey?'”), the other in his native Italy. He’s thrilled crowds at Winfield, Merlefest, the Four Corners festival, the Ryman Auditorium, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, folk festivals in Canada, and radio shows including NPR’s All Things Considered and E-Town. He’s performed with some of the greats of the roots music scene including David Grisman, Gene Parsons, Doc Watson and Norman Blake, and earned the respect of roots musicians and fans around the world.
And after all that, he’s an inspiring and smart teacher, sharing his passion for his adopted instrument and style. Be sure to go to Beppe’s channel on YouTube; you’ll be amazed and uplifted by what you see and hear. (Last update 2018)
Abbie Gardner
Best known as a founding member of Americana harmony trio Red Molly, Abbie Gardner is a joyful dobro player and singer/songwriter with an infectious smile. She loves teaching dobro and songwriting, whether in person or with her down-to-earth “Woodshed” YouTube lessons filmed from her home in the shadow of New York City. Abbie goes out of her way to make it fun and achievable, while seeking to forever expand her own knowledge.
Abbie has taught dobro at Nashville Dobro Camp, Grand Targhee, ResoSummit and Rockygrass Academy. She specializes in singing while playing, dobro as a rhythm instrument, treating musician’s injuries (as an Occupational Therapist) and creating lyrical solos in G tuning or D tuning. On the songwriting side, Abbie has taught at Swannanoa Gathering, Summer Songs, and New England Songwriter’s Retreat; as well as running her own Zoom writing classes seasonally since April 2020. She’s endlessly fascinated by music, so there are no dumb questions in her classes. (Last update 2023)
Katie Glassman
Katie Glassman is one of the country’s most renowned and decorated Texas-style and swing fiddlers, as well as an accomplished songwriter, singer, and a highly sought after educator. Katie is a 4-time National Swing Fiddle Champion and 2-time National Divisional Champion, to mention a few of her accolades.
For 6 years Katie toured and recorded with the renowned trio, The Western Flyers, winners of 2018 Ameripolitan Awards “Best Western Swing Group” and Western Music Association and the Academy of Western Artists “Western Swing Album of the Year” award for Wild Blue Yonder.
As an educator, Katie is the founder, owner, and primary instructor at the online fiddle academy, FiddleSchool.com. Since Fiddle School opened in 2018, her thorough online curriculum has given fiddlers around the world the opportunity to learn, improve, and progress in Texas-style fiddling, western swing, and early jazz. Offering over 1,000 sequential instructional videos and countless webinars on fiddling and improvisation, Katie is also an innovator, creating a modern curriculum for a traditional American art form. (Last update 2023)
Bob Goldstein
Bob Goldstein is a product of the folk scare of the 1960s. He began his career as a singer/songwriter, but got too much work playing guitar, mandolin and banjo in bluegrass, swing, western/cowboy and commercial country bands. He’s backed such artists as Johnny Gimble, Buddy Emmons, Byron Berline, Peter Rowan, and Lynn Anderson, and was a member of the Howard Brothers Band, the Ozone Express, Heartswing, the Laurie Gibson Band, the Sons of Rodan, the Last Mile Ramblers, and Elliott’s Ramblers, among others. For many years he played guitar, mandolin and banjo for the cowboy swing band Syd Masters and The Swing Riders, and was for many years one-third of the Bill Hearne Trio.
As a youth, Bob studied with the legendary Reverend Gary Davis, and later with jazz great Bruce Dunlap.
Known as one of the best sidemen in the Southwest, Bob was nominated for Instrumentalist of the Year by the Western Music Association, and for Guitar Player of the Year by the Colorado Bluegrass Music Association. He’s led and participated in fingerstyle guitar workshops at many music festivals, and has taught for most of the past 39 years.
Bob’s musical motto is, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, and that’s enough.” When asked their opinion of his playing, guitar legends from Chet Atkins to Doc Watson have unanimously responded, “Who?” (Last update 2018)
Martin Grosswendt
Martin Grosswendt has been exploring the roots and branches of American acoustic music for more than 50 years, having cut his teeth on his older sister’s LPs of Mississippi John Hurt and the Kweskin Jug Band. A master of pre-war blues and other southern traditional music, his fingerpicking, bottleneck playing and singing move audiences, critics and musicians alike. He’s played at festivals, concerts and music camps across the U.S. and Canada. His musicianship is matched by his knowledge of the music’s sources and creators. (Last update 2023)
Sylvia Herold
Sylvia Herold covers a broad stylistic spectrum. For 16 years she toured and recorded with the popular San Francisco Bay Area swing trio Cats and Jammers. She was a five-year member of the Django Reinhardt-inspired Hot Club of San Francisco, and she performs with Wake the Dead, a band that melds traditional Celtic music with songs of the Grateful Dead (whodathunkit?) Her Sylvia Herold Trio plays smoking-hot swing and standards, and she’s the lead vocalist of Euphonia, a quartet that blends traditional folk music from America, the British Isles and beyond.
She’s an impressive guitarist and vocalist, comfortable in a host of styles, and has recorded many, many works with the A-List of Bay Area musicians. She’s taught at a variety of camps over the years, and is highly regarded as an instructor.
You can see much more at Sylvia’s website, and some fine videos here. (Last update 2018)
Conner Hollingsworth
Conner Hollingsworth began his music career in Chicago where he earned his Bachelor’s degree in Music Performance at Northeastern Illinois University under the tutelage of Lyric Opera bassist Greg Sarchet. While in Chicago, Conner accrued a wealth of experience performing and recording with symphony orchestras, jazz combos, musicals, and singer-songwriter projects. Conner moved to Boulder, CO in 2014 where he earned his Master’s degree in Music Performance and Pedagogy at the University of Colorado.
While in Colorado, Conner has been incredibly grateful to become part of a rich musical community that shares his deep respect for traditional American music. Conner regularly performs at clubs, swing dances, and music festivals with acts such as The Jeremy Mohney Band and Greg Schochet’s Little America. Conner finds great reward in hopefully carrying on the great tradition of American music from the 1920’s-40’s which developed and integrated the sounds of blues, country, jazz, swing, folk, and bluegrass in ways that still lift spirits and warm hearts today. (Last update 2023)
Jim Hurst
Jim Hurst is respected among his peers as a top guitarist. A veteran musician of many facets, including national and international touring with top Country and Bluegrass artists in live performances and recordings, Jim also tours solo and with his Jim Hurst Trio.
A final nominee for the IBMA Guitar Player of the Year Award 14 times, including 2017, he received the award twice. Inspired both by flat-picking and finger-style from the legends, the intertwining of these musical threads defines Jim’s unique style. Experienced in music camp instruction, workshops, and private and online lessons, he brings a wealth of knowledge to share in his teaching efforts.
Jim’s perspectives of performing, recording, songwriting, and the application of his knowledge and experience from his many roles in the music business, his teaching offers a variety of learning opportunities for his students. (Last update 2018)
Pete Huttlinger
Pete Huttlinger graduated cum laude from Berklee College in 1984 and moved to Nashville. During the years since, Huttlinger has established himself as a top-notch session player, composer, arranger, bandleader, songwriter and sideman. Huttlinger toured with John Denver’s band from the early 90s until the singer’s death in 1997.
Pete Huttlinger has many credits to his name including the title of 2000 National Fingerstyle Guitar Champion. He has performed on numerous Grammy-winning and Grammy-nominated projects. He has also been nominated for an Emmy for music he both composed and performed for a PBS special. His performances have been used in several national TV series.
He has been featured on the cover of Fingerstyle Guitar twice, and has been profiled in Guitar Player, Acoustic Guitar, Vintage Guitar and Guitar World Acoustic. Peers consider Huttlinger one of today’s finest fingerstyle guitarists. Dirty Linen magazine labeled him “….a powerhouse guitarist,” and Guitar Player magazine referred to his playing as “…an amazing display of all-around fingerstyle mastery. Scary stuff.”
In the early 2000s, Pete stepped into the solo spotlight, releasing his CD, The Santa Rita Connection. This newest collection is hot on the heels of his critically acclaimed Naked Pop CD.
He has created two series of instructional DVDs that have become Homespun Tapes top sellers.
Sadly, Pete fought for many years against a congenital heart defect which took him from us at age 54, in January 2016. He’s been sorely missed since then. (Last update 2018)
Mike Iverson
As has been said many times and many ways, “seek those who seek the truth, and run from those who have found it.” With that in mind, let’s seek Mike Iverson. He’s the constant, intrepid learner, and has learned, arranged and integrated volumes of great music, style and technique on the banjo.
Mike doesn’t call himself a banjo player. He calls himself a folksinger who uses the banjo as accompaniment. What he doesn’t tell you is that his technique, breadth of style, and musicianship are second to none, whether it’s on clawhammer, 3-finger bluegrass, or something in between. He can tear off a smoking-hot bluegrass solo a la Earl Scruggs, J.D. Crowe or Bill Evans, or he can play just the notes needed, ever so musically.
Mike Iverson has his own “progressive clawhammer” style. No, that’s not an oxymoron when he does it. He loves moving between styles and genres, and doing that which best serves the music. He’s been playing for over 50 years in several bands, teaching most of those years as well and making music better for hundreds of people at camps. (Last update 2018)
Mark Johnson
Mark Johnson is an American master of the 5-string banjo. Highly accomplished as both a three-finger style bluegrass player and a clawhammer player, he has revolutionized the art of playing clawhammer style banjo and advanced the five-string banjo well into uncharted territory with a style he calls “Clawgrass.”
Mark has released four albums, the latest two with his amazing mandolin partner, Emory Lester. Mark’s first release, “Clawgrass,” recorded in 1994 and featuring his friends Larry, Ronny, Tony and Wyatt Rice, was highly acclaimed in the Bluegrass and acoustic music print and radio media and earned him praise throughout the acoustic music industry.
Mark’s unique style doesn’t really fit into a strict category. It’s very bluegrass but has overtones of traditional folk, progressive acoustic, newgrass and old-time all mixed into one. It’s authentic. It’s unique. It’s Clawgrass. (Last update 2018)
Gerald Jones
Gerald Jones, life-long Texan, has been involved with the performing, production and teaching of music for over 35 years. He’s a skilled player in many different styles including bluegrass, western swing, country, classical,jazz, and Polish war hymns… He’s played or recorded with with Jim “Texas Shorty” Chancellor, Mark O’Connor, Vince Gill, Sam Bush, Hank Thompson, Red Steagall, Jerry Douglas, Junior Brown and many more. He was he editor of Mel Bay’s webzine Banjo Sessions and a frequent contributor to Joe Carr’s Mandolin Sessions. Gerald invented the Acoustic Plus pickup used by Earl Scruggs, Bela Fleck, Alan Munde, Bill Keith and many other great banjo players.
Gerald is also a favorite instructor at many bluegrass and roots music camps around the nation, teaching banjo, mandolin, guitar and many special topics such as Jam Survival Skills, Redneck Ear Training, Redneck Music Theory and others. Joe Carr said of Gerald, “students love him because he jams a lot with them and teaches as much out of class as in!” (Last update 2019)
Cindy Kallet
Cindy Kallet is a songwriter, singer and guitarist who has taught and performed extensively throughout North America. She tours as a solo performer, as half of the duo, Cindy Kallet and Grey Larsen, and as a third of the trio, Kallet, Epstein and Cicone. She adores teaching at music camps, and loves to help nurture the harmony-singing, songwriting and guitar-playing potential in all of us. (Last update 2018)
Dave Kiphuth
Dave began playing banjo and guitar in 1962 at the age of 14, where he became deeply involved in the New Haven, CT bluegrass and folk scene. By 1964, he was playing with Billy Hamilton’s New Haven based band, The Ohio River Boys and later helped found the seminal CT band, Apple Country, which played into the 80s. In the late 80s, Dave and his wife Linda Schrade helped form a dynamic band on the ME Seacoast with Cosy Sheridan, Susie Burke, David Levine and later with David Surette. From 1992 on, then based in Saratoga Springs NY, he had a 7-year stretch with John Rossbach’s Chestnut Grove, and was also a member of Bluegrass Union with Phil Rosenthal, Phil Zimmerman, Stacy Philips and Beth Sommers.
Always influenced by Earl Scruggs, Ralph Stanley and the hard line Bluegrass pioneers, he is also greatly influenced by the masters of Round Peak OldTime clawhammer and helped found the OldTime/Celtic/Bluegrass fusion band Red Hen with his late wife Linda Schrade and band mates,Jane Rothfield and Alan Carr. Dave has been an instructor at Banjo Camp North in MA for many years and has been an ardent banjo teacher and advocate since the 60s. He has played and taught at numerable festivals since then, including Berryville VA, Cliff Top WV, Gettysburg, Shade Gap, Common Ground, Escoheag, Delaware, Falcon Ridge, Ossipee, Pemi Valley, High Mt. Hay Fever in Westcliffe CO, Grey Fox, Joe Val Bluegrass Festival and Thomas Point. In addition, Pete Wernick selected David to be one of his Wernick Method Jam Class instructors.
Nowadays, he is busy playing banjo and resonator guitar with Cecil Abel’s New England Bluegrass Band, and the bluegrass-synthesis band Bolt Hill, both based in the NH and ME Seacoast areas. He is also a professional artist/illustrator, happy in the woods of Eliot ME with his cat family. (Last update 2018)
Pat Kirtley
With a category-defying repertoire of folk, pop, Celtic, Latin, jazz, and down-home country, Pat Kirtley’s playing continues to garner international praise. Winner of both the National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship and the National Thumbpicking Championship, he is hailed as one of “The Next Generation: Hot New Acoustic Acts for the Millenium” by Acoustic Guitar magazine.
As a writer, Pat has been a featured columnist for magazines Onstage, Electronic Musician, Home Recording, Wood & Steel, and Germany’s Akustik Gitarre.
Pat is also a respected educator and an international clinician for Taylor Guitars. He is a veteran of the festival and summer music camp scene, having performed and taught at many of the major events across the country and abroad. Pat is known for his patience, encyclopedic knowledge of guitar, clear explanations of difficult ideas, and taking the time to address the individual needs of each student one-on-one.
Pat has produced numerous instructional videos for Guitar Workshop and books for Mel Bay. He has released five acclaimed albums which have become perennial staples of the acoustic guitar world, and he appeared on Narada Records’ CD project Guitar Fingerstyle which sold over a quarter million copies, followed up by appearances on Narada’s Masters of Acoustic Guitar and Guitar Fingerstyle 2. His music is featured on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and has been used as soundtracks on Lifetime Network’s The Wire. (Last update 2018)
Cara Luft
Juno award winner Cara Luft is that rare artist steeped in folk and traditional roots music almost from birth, yet willing to alter the fabric, stretch the boundaries and fearlessly bend genres and styles. As a founding member of The Wailin’ Jennys, she released several albums with them, and more after she set out on a solo career, and even more as a member of the duo The Small Glories. She’s a fine songwriter, singer, guitarist and banjoist. Admittedly, she had a pretty good head start, growing up in a folk music household with her dad, Barry Luft, who’s been called “the Pete Seeger of Canada.”
Of her and her work, we’ve read: “you don’t want to be without this disc” (Wildy’s World), “a consummate performer” (Americana UK), “Cara’s warm alto vocals are sinfully sweet” and “Luft is the perfect blend of lightness and gutsy rock chick” (PopMatters), “Cara knocks our socks off with her best recorded work to date” (No Depression). One writer’s only complaint was that Cara was Canadian and not American, stating “we can’t claim her as a national treasure.” OK, that’s enough, but there are many more.
Yes, she can teach. Yes, she can work with you on both your playing and songwriting. But mostly, she’s just about as much fun as anyone we’ve ever seen. (Last update 2018)
John Kirk and Trish Miller
Since 1988, John Kirk and Trish Miller have toured as a duo throughout the world, from the Grand Canyon to Barbados, from Carnegie Hall in New York to the Academy of Culture in St. Petersburg, Russia, playing music and singing in concerts, festivals, and schools, and calling contra and square dances.
John’s lyric voice, humor and versatile instrumental skills have earned him widespread recognition in traditional music circles. On fiddle, mandolin, guitar, banjo, keyboard and ukulele, John demonstrates a vast knowledge of musical traditions. He’s a member of the music faculty at Bennington College in Vermont and Skidmore College in New York. He’s performed with Pete Seeger, Tom Chapin, Kate Wolf, John Sebastian, Jay Ungar and a host of others.
Trish plays guitar and banjo, dances and sings traditional and original music, teaches banjo at Skidmore College, and has performed throughout North America and internationally. She’s also an accomplished dancer, dance caller and choreographer, with a diverse repertoire of circle, square, contra and mixer dances. Her rhythmic stepping style is rooted in the southern mountains with a mix of traditional clogging and more modern percussive steps. (Last update 2018)
Marcy Marxer
Marcy Marxer is a two-time Grammy award winner, multi-instrumentalist, studio musician, performer, songwriter and producer with 30 years of experience and a shelf of impressive awards. She has played on National Geographic specials, Eva Cassidy CDs, and over 50 recordings and instructional materials created with her partner, Cathy Fink.
Marcy’s guitar playing spans a variety of styles: swing rhythm and lead, bluegrass, old-time, Celtic fingerpicking, folk fingerpicking and some of the most tasteful backup you can hear. The C.F. Martin Co. has honored Marcy with her very own signature model guitar, the Martin MC3H which she helped design, and the Gold Tone Banjo Company makes the Marcy Marxer model Cello Banjo. If that isn’t enough, Flatpicking Guitar magazine called Marcy “one of the country’s top Western-style guitar players.”
Marcy is all about connecting music and people. She teaches locally when not on tour and has many courses for guitar, ukulele and harmony singing available through Homespun Tapes. She’s also created an international online network for lovers of the mighty ukulele, Ukulele Social Club.
Could she teach just about anything at the camp? Yes! But we asked her to teach ukulele and theory. No, not that theory; the fun kind. (Last update 2018)
Tim May
Tim May has taught for a bunch of years at the Colorado Roots Music Camp. He’s also one of today’s hottest flatpickers, period.
For fifteen years, he performed with the progressive bluegrass band Crucial Smith, playing most of the high-profile festivals in the country including Telluride, Winfield and Winterhawk. In 2002-2003 he toured with Patty Loveless in support of her bluegrass albums Mountain Soul and White Snow: A Mountain Christmas. In 2005, he recorded on Charlie Daniels’ album Songs from the Long Leaf Pines, and was solo guitarist on the Grammy-nominated track I’ll Fly Away.
Tim has also toured with John Cowan Band, performed at the Grand Ole Opry as a member of Mike Snider’s Old Time String Band and played on the all-star Rounder recording Moody Bluegrass: a Nashville Tribute to the Moody Blues, of which Mark Hurley of Higher and Higher, the Moody Blues fan magazine, said “The jaw-dropping guitar solo on The Voice would cause Eddie Van Halen to weep from insecurity.”
Of his playing, Pat Flynn said “Tim always says that I influenced him, but the truth is that I’ve learned something every time I play with him. I owe him a lot,” and Dan Crary said simply, “Tim May has just become one of my favorite guitar players.” (Last update 2022)
Carol McComb
Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and educator Carol McComb has performed from Carnegie Hall to the Ash Grove in Los Angeles. At age 19, she was half of the duet Kathy and Carol when she and Kathy Larisch signed with Elektra Records. For eight years, she toured with the nationally-known Gryphon Quintet as a lead singer, songwriter, and guitar and Dobro player. Most recently, she toured with Linda Ronstadt in the summer of 2007. Her eighth and most recent album, Little Bit of Heaven, has received high critical praise.
Carol has taught private and group lessons for Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto, CA for over 30 years, and since 1988, her popular instruction book and tape set Country and Blues Guitar for the Musically Hopeless has sold more than 100,000 copies. She’s been called a “songwriter’s songwriter” and her songs have been recorded by Bill Staines, Laurie Lewis, the Good Ol’ Persons and 2004 Grammy winners Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, among others. She’s a co-founder and former director of the California Coast Music Camp, and has spent thousands of hours working with students. (Last update 2018)
Lewis Mock
John Moore
John Moore has played guitar and mandolin since 1971, performed professionally since 1978, and taught since 1981. He’s been a regularly returning instructor at numerous music camps, including Wintergrass Academy, Steve Kaufman’s Guitar Camp, Bluegrass On The Beach, Sore Fingers Music Camp (England), RockyGrass Academy, Northern Bluegrass Circle Music Camp (Alberta, Canada), Levelland College and Northern Minnesota Bluegrass Camp among many others. He’s also well-known as the teacher of Nickel Creek’s Chris Thile and Sean Watkins.
He was a founding member of the highly acclaimed band California, the IBMA’s instrumental band of the year 3 years in a row, along with Byron Berline, Dan Crary, John Hickman and Steve Spurgin. He’s worked with Dennis Caplinger and Bill Bryson in Bluegrass, Etc. as well as numerous side projects with other well known bluegrass musicians. John has done many TV and radio commercials as well as several soundtracks for major motion pictures. His touring schedule has led him all over the world, and his teaching approach has received outstanding reviews. (Last update 2018)
Penny Nichols
Penny Nichols was an award winning, 3-time Grammy nominated singer/songwriter and vocal arranger who performed and taught since 1966. Her most recent ventures include her series of Harmony and Background Vocal arranging lessons on CD, a new book/CD: The Eight Voyages of Nep, and teaching at Summer Acoustic Music Week camp in New Hampshire and Moab Folk camp in Utah. She was also the founding director of the nonprofit SummerSongs, a music camp for songwriters.
Penny started her career as a folk singer in coffeehouses around Orange County, California, sharing the stage with Jackson Browne, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Ponies, Jennifer Warnes, Mary McCaslin and many others. Between then and now, there’s way too much to list, so here are just a few of the more interesting points: she’s been a member of Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band, recorded two albums, written and sung commercials for Toyota, earned a doctorate at Harvard University and recorded with Art Garfunkel, Suzi Quatro, Danny O’Keefe, and a host of others.
We’re sorry to report that Penny passed away in October 2017 after a valiant battle with cancer. She was a kind, caring educator as well as a fine, fine singer and performer. (Last update 2018)
Scott Nygaard
Scott Nygaard is known as one of the most inventive and original guitarists in the bluegrass/acoustic music scene. His solos, a seamless amalgam of bluegrass, folk, and jazz influences, shift easily from breathtaking virtuosity to soulful melodic musings and his accompaniment is always intriguing, supportive, and propulsive. Initially influenced by Doc Watson, Clarence White, and Django Reinhardt and Riley Puckett, he spent many years wandering the sea of American music that includes bluegrass, jazz, Cajun, old-time, western swing and rock and roll, and has since expanded his musical world to include traditional Swedish and Irish music.
Scott was the guitarist with Tim O’Brien’s band, the O’Boys, from 1992 to 1997, and has performed and/or recorded with Joan Baez, Chris Thile, Darol Anger, Jerry Douglas, Laurie Lewis, Anonymous 4, Matt Flinner, Bill Evans, Sharon Gilchrist and many others, receiving numerous Grammy nominations.
He’s released two solo albums on Rounder Records, the second of which, Dreamer’s Waltz, an intriguing mix of original and traditional tunes, was nominated for an Indie award by the Association for Independent Music.
He was the editor of Acoustic Guitar magazine for many years, and wrote hundreds of articles on music, musicians, guitars, and guitarists for Acoustic Guitar, Strings, Play Guitar!, and Guitar World Acoustic. He authored two instruction books, Bluegrass Guitar Essentials and Fiddle Tunes and Folk Songs for Beginning Guitar (both String Letter Publishing/Hal Leonard); produced an instructional video, Bluegrass Lead Guitar (Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop), and taught at music workshops from Fairbanks to Finland.
Of him, Flatpicking Guitar magazine says “Scott is one of the absolute cutting-edge players in today’s acoustic music scene.” (Last update 2018)
Mike Phelan
Mike Phelan grew up in Columbus, Ohio, where he was inspired at an early age by the great musical traditions of the Midwest and the Soul performers who performed there regularly. Although Mike has been performing as a singer from age 5 and as a player from age 12 he did not begin to publish his original works until his 30’s. He has lived all over the U.S., playing, recording and performing in many styles including bluegrass, rock, folk and blues.
Upon moving to California in the mid-1970’s, he soon became the vocal and instrumental mainstay of numerous country, rock and swing bands. Mike, who now lives in northern California, is a fine singer and writer in a variety of styles. His original compositions, soulful vocals and instrumental leads grace the stages where his current band, Marley’s Ghost, performs. Mike sings and plays guitar, fiddle, resonator guitar, lap steel, and bass for Marley’s Ghost as they perform nationally and internationally at festivals, colleges, clubs and corporate events. Mike also creates music, ads & voiceover for radio, film & TV.
in 2006, Mike attended our camp as a camper. Knowing how much fun he is to sing and jam with, we asked him to teach our Bluegrass Songbook class. He was so popular with the campers that we asked him to come back the next year as an instructor, and was a great hit.
Here’s a video of Mike teaching his song “You’re Not Lonely Enough to Know” to an all-star cast of instructors in 2006. (Last update 2018)
Michael Price
As a young adult he went on to study music in school from many wonderful teachers at Santa Rosa Junior College, Cabrillo College, UC Santa Cruz, San Jose State University, and the Ali Akbar College of Music. During these years he played the bass in orchestras, jazz combos, big bands, concert bands, musical theater productions, Bluegrass and Old Time bands, Latin American ensembles, North Indian Classical music settings, and countless performances and jam sessions. It’s all got bass.
As a teacher, Michael has worked for many years with both individuals and groups helping students understand and experience both the technical and physical aspects of making music on their instruments, and the language of music in general – the tools of creativity, whether for composition, improvisation, or simply for greater musical expression.
These days he teaches piano, guitar, and of course bass while continuing to perform on the bass a few times a week. Some of his favorite current projects include Bay Area regional acts Lulu & The Rent Party, The American Alley Cats, Surfer Roma and The Lonestar Retrobates. Michael was especially honored to be a member of Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks during Dan’s last years. (Last update 2018)
Gretchen Priest
Gretchen Priest: Born in IN; Living in Nashville, TN since 1995. She toured with Celtic rock band, “Ceili Rain” and bluegrass band, “Crucial Smith”. Performed on the
Grand Ole Opry, and with various artists including Kathy Mattea, Joy Lynn White, Manhattan Transfer, Lyle Lovett, Charlie McCoy, and she played for the Pope!
She has taught at many camps over the years including Alaska Trad Music Camp, Texas Acoustic Music Camp, Nashcamp, CO Roots Camp, Steve Kaufman’s Camp, and Mark
O’Connor’s Fiddle Camp. She is the founder & Director of the Musical Heritage Center, AKA… the Fiddle & Pick since 2008; hosting traditional music events with
workshops and concerts by expert instructors. She teaches private lessons and leads inclusive multi-level jams, sessions and classes.
Gretchen loves playing tunes for dancers; Contra, flatfootin’, Irish dance. She currently performs with the “Nashville Irish Trio”; Eamonn Dillon (pipes & whistle), Robert Johnson (guitar & bouzouki). Tours with eclectic bluegrass artist, Erinn Peet- Lukes. Gretchen’s “PLAIDGRASS” CD shows her fiddle skill in Bluegrass, Old-Time & Irish. Recording project release soon,
“Roadside Distraction”, with mandolinist Emily Wilson (Old-time, Irish and wacky tunes). (Last update 2022)
Raul Reynoso
Guitarist, singer and composer Raul Reynoso was born in Los Angeles, California. He started playing bluegrass guitar in 1974 and soon acquired the skills that would earn him two California State Flatpicking Guitar championships as well as many Western regional titles. Today, he is most noted for his expertise on acoustic guitar and mandolin with a mastery of styles ranging from bluegrass and western swing to ‘30s jazz in the tradition of the legendary Django Reinhardt.
Raul first rose to prominence in the band of banjo virtuoso Larry McNeely, and his three-year stint with the band included one recording and two appearances on the Grand Ole Opry. The release of Raul’s CD “Royal Street” brought him international acclaim from jazz reviewers in the US, UK and Europe. The instrumental and compositional skills displayed on his CD have solidified his position as one of the world’s greatest guitarists. Music critic Jim Hilmar said “When it comes to guitar styles, Raul Reynoso’s clean, lithe, articulate picking technique is to die for.”
Along with John Jorgenson, Raul is one of the pioneers of the Gypsy Jazz movement, and has been nominated Instrumentalist of the Year three times by the Western Music Association.
Raul has taught privately for over 35 years, and has done workshop and clinics for the last fifteen. He’s done workshops with John Jorgenson for the JazzMasters Workshop, as well as bluegrass workshops with Dan Crary, John Moore, Beppe Gambetta, and Steve Kaufman. (Last update 2021)
John Reischman
John Reischman is renowned for his exquisite taste, tone and impeccable musicianship. As an original member of the legendary Tony Rice Unit, John helped to define the ‘new acoustic’ instrumental scene in the early 1980s with appearances on the band’s groundbreaking Rounder albums Still Inside and Backwaters.
These days, his mastery of the instrument is showcased in the powerful bluegrass band John Reischman and the Jaybirds, and his Latin/jazz instrumental duo with highly-regarded acoustic guitar stylist John Miller.
John has released eight albums of his own and played on a host of others, including the Grammy Award-winning True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe. His 2002 album with the Jaybirds, Field Guide, was nominated for Canada’s highest music award, the Juno, in the Roots and Traditional Group category for 2002.
He’s been influenced by the greats of mandolin from Bill Monroe and Frank Wakefield to David Grisman and Jethro Burns, and Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine calls him “One of the top performers and composers in acoustic music… [with] complete command of his instrument’s voice.” Acoustic Musician Magazine called him “One of the most tasteful and accomplished mandolinists anywhere.”
John’s a familiar figure at bluegrass, folk and jazz festivals throughout North America, and is a highly-regarded teacher, clinician and camp instructor. (Last update 2018)
Deanie Richardson
Deanie Richardson has been fiddling since age 9 and made her first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry at age 13. Today she’s one of the most sought-after fiddlers in Nashville, but plays a broad range of styles including country, old-time and Irish. Of Deanie, Vince Gill said “Sometimes great country fiddlers aren’t great bluegrass fiddlers and vice versa, but she encompasses those styles. She knows the difference and plays the difference.”
A 2010 nominee for Top Fiddle Player of the Year by the Academy of Country Music, Deanie has toured, performed and/or recorded with Vince Gill, Patty Loveless, Bob Seger, Dale Ann Bradley, Emmylou Harris, Ry Cooder, David Olney, Hank Williams Jr, Del McCoury, Marty Stuart, Travis Tritt, Holly Dunn and the Chieftains, among others. She’s appeared on Letterman, Leno, Conan and the Today Show at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, London’s Royal Albert Hall as well as touring France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland.
Deanie also loves to teach, to work with people, and to bring along the next generation of players. (Last update 2018)
Cindy Browne Rosefield
Cindy Browne Rosefield is the Director of Instrumental Studies and the Coordinator of the Music Business Certificate at Las Positas College in Livermore CA where she also teaches Music Theory, American Cultures in Jazz, and History of Rock & Roll. Cindy performs and records with various groups, including Wake the Dead and the Tom Reynolds Conspiracy. She has toured extensively throughout Europe, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, the Caribbean Islands, Canada, and the U.S., and performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival, Concord Jazz Festival, SF Jazz Festival, the California Jazz Conservatory, and many other jazz and folk music festivals around the world. She also serves on the Board of the Livermore Jazz Society, a non-profit organization which hosts musical performances of jazz and other underserved musical genres through house concerts and local venues. (Last update 2023)
Gerald Ross
Gerald Ross is comfortable with just about every type of roots music there is, from western swing, bluegrass, Hawaiian, blues, jug band music, jazz standards, Tin Pan Alley, New Orleans rhythms to boogie-woogie, and he plays it all on guitar, lap steel, Dobro and ukulele.
He’s performed in concert with Bonnie Raitt, Arlo Guthrie, Doc Watson, Johnny Gimble, Riders In The Sky, Brownie McGhee and many others. Gerald won the Solo Artist Category of the 1993 WEMU Jazz Competition and has appeared many times on “A Prairie Home Companion.”
These days, Gerald is one of America’s best-known performers on, and advocates for, the ukulele; he’s released several CDs of ukulele music, published instructional materials, and is very much in demand as a camp instructor. He’s published several instructional videos, available on the web, and don’t miss his performance of “Take the ‘A’ Train.” (Last update 2018)
Greg Schochet
Greg Schochet is a full-time performer, teacher and producer in Boulder, Colorado. Equally adept on guitar and mandolin, he is fluent in all manner of acoustic and electric styles, specializing in bluegrass, swing and country. He is the lead guitarist for Halden Wofford & the Hi*Beams, Colorado’s beloved and venerable honky-tonk and western swing band. Greg is an integral part of Colorado’s thriving roots music scene, and is a sought after instructor, session player, producer and collaborator.
A veteran of many teaching camps, Greg has also been guitar and mandolin teacher at Woodsongs Music, Colorado’s premier acoustic music store, for some 20 years. His teaching practice centers around preparing students to thrive in ensemble settings, whether it be a campground jam or a working band. Students start with technique fundamentals, then move to learning, executing and maintaining core repertoire, and finally learning to improvise tastefully and intentionally. Greg’s enthusiasm for the music he teaches, as well as his personable manner and attention to detail have established him a loyal and committed student body. (Last update 2021)
Cindy Scott
Cindy Scott’s path has been, well, different. Raised in a family of musicians, her first instrument was flute, which earned her a scholarship to Louisiana State University. She went on to get an MBA and learned to speak German and Spanish along the way. During a study abroad program, she began singing in the jazz cellars of Germany with local musicians. Back in the US, she climbed the corporate ladder for a while, but in 2005, left a successful business career for a musician’s life in New Orleans, where she promptly lost all her household belongings to Hurricane Katrina. She decided to stick around and has since become firmly rooted in the rich music scene of the Crescent City.
Cindy maintains an active performance schedule in New Orleans and elsewhere. She has performed in cities all over the US and Europe and in more exotic locales like Mexico, Turkey, and Kazakhstan. Her recording “Let the Devil Take Tomorrow” won OffBeat Magazine’s Best Contemporary Jazz Album award for 2010, and All About Jazz said of her, “The Devil may take tomorrow, but … Cindy Scott clearly owns today.” She is currently working on her fourth album, which will reflect more of her singer-songwriter tendencies.
Cindy is also a respected voice instructor of many styles. She has taught contemporary voice at both the University of New Orleans and Loyola University, and as of 2016, Berklee College of Music. She’s taught a myriad of professional vocalists, and was hired to coach Oscar-winning actor Octavia Spencer and actor-comedian Russell Brand. One of her former students, Jon Cleary, just won a GRAMMY™ for his recording “GoGo Juice.”
…and Roots Camp founder Charlie Hall was proud to claim her as his cousin. (Last update 2018)
Jennifer Scott
Considered the finest jazz vocal improviser in Canada by peers, fans and musicians, Jennifer Scott is an important jazz voice. She’s sung with such greats as Gene Bertoncini, Clark Terry, Tommy Banks, Paul Horn and Kenny Wheeler, to name a few, and has been nominated for a Juno (Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) award.
She’s performed to sold-out crowds from San Diego to Vancouver to Whitehorse and has more recently performed in Amsterdam, Milan and Rome. During a recent tour of the western states and Canada, she was named “Pick of the week” by the Los Angeles Times where she was quoted as having: “…a velvet tone & superb phrasing….”
Jennifer has set herself apart from the jazz-vocalist pack with her mesmerizing renditions of the most unlikely tunes. With her warm, flexible contralto, she brings a striking emotional intelligence to everything she sings. As much a song stylist as an improviser, she puts her stamp on material through her supple sense of swing and deft, slippery phrasing.
For years, she’s also been very much in demand as a clinician and teacher of workshops throughout the United States and Canada. (Last update 2022)
Jon Shain
Durham, NC’s Jon Shain is the 2019 International Blues Challenge winner in the solo/duo category. Shain had the good fortune to learn directly from a number of NC’s older blues players, and became a member of Big Boy Henry’s backing band. Shain is known for his modern songwriting with social justice themes mixed in with traditional blues, ragtime, and country influences. He has shared stages with the likes of Keb’ Mo’, John Hiatt, and Jackson Browne. Jon is also fast being recognized as a successful producer in the folk and acoustic blues genres. (Last update 2022)
Cosy Sheridan
Cosy Sheridan first appeared on the national folk scene in 1992 when she won the songwriting contests at The Kerrville Folk Festival and The Telluride Bluegrass Festival. The Boston Globe dubbed her “one of the best new singer-songwriters in the United States.”
She is a veteran touring performer of the folk coffeehouses from Boston to Seattle, as well as The Cowgirl Hall of Fame, Carnegie Hall and on the Jerry Lewis Telethon. “You can’t make it into double digits, and continue touring for twenty or so years, unless you know what you’re doing, and do it well,” wrote The Chicago Examiner.
Her 2021 CD A Beautiful Sound charted in the Top 10 on the folk radio charts, as did her 2018 release My Fence & My Neighbor. Her CD Pretty Bird was listed among Sing Out Magazine’s Great CDs of 2014.
When the pandemic hit she came off the road and now reaches her audience through her weekly Tuesday morning livestream concerts. She plays a percussive guitar style backed backed up by bass player Charlie Koch.
Cosy teaches classes in songwriting, performance and guitar at workshops and adult music camps across the country. She is the director of Moab Folk Camp in Moab, Utah. Last update 2023)
Matt Shortridge
Matt Shortridge has been playing Irish fiddle and guitar since 1991, and was a mainstay of the vibrant Washington DC music and dance scene. He led a band for the Greater Washington Ceili Club’s regular monthly dance and is a frequent leader and guest for ceili bands at other DC and Baltimore dances. He was especially appreciated in DC as an inclusive session leader who actively draws out the best in everyone’s playing.
For the last ten years, Matt has been a favorite teacher at the Irish Week at the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, West Virginia. He helped create the popular Ceili Band class, co-teaching it with a variety of instructors including Billy McComisky, Bob McQuillen, Jesse Winch, and Mick Mulcahy. Matt has also performed at Augusta with Mike Rafferty, Billy McComisky, Karen Ashbrook and Brendan Dolan, taught DADGAD guitar for 3 years, and led countless sessions. (Last update 2018)
Wayne Shrubsall
Wayne Shrubsall is a nationally-known banjoist, instructor and historian. He’s performed with Bill Monroe, has played with Byron Berline, Vassar Clements, Dan Crary, Peter Feldmann, Steve Smith and Hard Road, and a host of others. He received his Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of New Mexico, working with the banjo in American popular culture. He has written for bluegrass music and banjo-oriented publications since1972 and has presented a program focusing on the history of the banjo and banjo styles since 1985. He’s also recorded a bunch, appearing in over 20 albums.
Wayne taught both clawhammer/frailing and three-finger/bluegrass style banjo. (Last update 2018)
Cyd Smith
A sophisticated guitarist and inspired singer/songwriter, Cyd Smith is a longtime member of the Northwest music scene. From swing jazz classics and Americana to her own impeccably crafted original songs, her music sparkles with wit, whimsy, and passion. An early background in classical guitar and a long study of swing jazz inform her unique sound. Cyd performs regularly in the Northwest and is a popular teacher at adult music camps throughout the United States, including the Centrum Blues Workshop, Augusta Heritage Festival, and Puget Sound Guitar Workshop. (Last update 2022)
Doug Smith
Doug Smith, winner of the 2006 International Fingerstyle Guitar Championship, weaves together folk, classical, jazz and contemporary forms into a unique, flowing fingerpicking style recalling the playing of Chet Atkins, Leo Kottke, Michael Hedges, and Alex de Grassi. Of his playing, Billboard writes “Inviting melodies… stunning fingerpicking”; Fingerstyle Guitar magazine raves “Smith’s fretboard brilliance continues to dazzle.”
He’s been heard nationwide on radio and TV, including The Discovery Channel, Martha Stewart Living, CNN, TNN, ESPN, and Encore. He also played guitar on the soundtracks for the movies Moll Flanders, Twister, and August Rush.
Doug has released six of his own albums, and in 2005, he earned a Grammy award for his role in the album Henry Mancini: Pink Guitar along with a Who’s Who of fingerstyle guitarists including Laurence Juber, Pat Donohue, Ed Gerhard, Mark Hanson and William Coulter. (Last update 2018)
Orrin Star
Orrin Star was a nationally recognized folk & bluegrass performer and teacher whose performances combined hot picking, cool singing and good humor. Winner of the 1976 National Flatpicking Championship and once described as “Arlo Guthrie meets Doc Watson,” he played flatpicked and fingerstyle guitar, banjo, mandolin, sang, and performed solo, duo and with his band Orrin Star & the Sultans of String. His repertoire spanned old-time, western swing, fingerstyle blues, Celtic and original songwriting in addition to more mainstream bluegrass and folk material.
An accomplished storyteller and entertainer (he worked as a stand-up comic for five years in the Boston area), he has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion and has three recordings on Flying Fish Records. He is the author of the popular Oak Publications book Hot Licks for Bluegrass Guitar, and a columnist for Flatpicking Guitar magazine.
We’re sorry to say that Orrin passed away on November 29, 2017 after a long battle with cancer. He was 62 years old. The acoustic music world lost a real friend. (Last update 2018)
See Orrin playing at Roots Camp in June 2010 (harmony singing by Maria Hall)
Steve Smith
Steve Smith is not only known as one of this country’s top mandolin players but also as an outstanding educator. Along with his work with the Roots/Bluegrass group, The Hard Road Trio, Steve has been on faculty at a host of camps. He’s appeared at some of the country’s largest festivals and venues including Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, High Mountain Hay Fever, RockyGrass, Swallow Hill, the Freight and Salvage, Oklahoma International Bluegrass Festival, the Big Horn Mountain Festival, and the Minnesota Old-time and Bluegrass Festival. With the Las Cruces (NM) Symphony, he has performed works of William Grant Still, George Gershwin and George Crumb and music from the show “Chicago.”
In his thirty years of touring, he’s also performed in Ireland, Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Cuba and the US Virgin Islands. He has also performed in musical theater in Cotton Patch Gospel (multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and actor) and the Robber Bride Groom; he composed and performed the score for a production of the Sam Sheppard play “Curse of the Starving Class.”
Steve has appeared on over 30 albums as performer and producer with musicians including Jim Hurst, Mitch Perry, Tim May, banjoist Bill Evans, Alan Munde and Tim O’Brien. His music has been heard on countless radio stations across the US and on the Discovery Channel, The History Channel and even the Weather Channel. (Last update 2018)
David Surette
One of New England’s premiere instrumentalists, David Surette is highly regarded for his work on the guitar (both flatpicked and fingerstyle), mandolin and bouzouki in a wide variety of settings.
As a soloist, he is nationally-known as a top player of Celtic fingerstyle guitar, yet his diverse repertoire also includes original compositions, blues and ragtime, traditional American roots music, and folk music from a variety of traditions, all played with finesse, taste, and virtuosity.
He has performed as a duo with his wife, singer Susie Burke, for 20 years, recording several albums and building a reputation as one of New England’s top folk duos.
Surette was a founding member of the Airdance band with fiddler Rodney Miller, with whom he recorded four albums and toured nationally. He has also released five solo recordings – his most recent is Return to Kemper, a collection of original and traditional solo guitar pieces from 1990-2011.
David is an accomplished and gifted teacher who has taught at workshops and camps throughout the U.S., and the U.K. He is folk music coordinator at the Concord (NH) Community Music School, and artistic director of their March Mandolin Festival. He has authored a book of Celtic fingerstyle guitar arrangements for Mel Bay Publications, and is a regular contributor to Acoustic Guitar and Strings magazines. (Last update 2018)
Jeff Troxel
Jeff Troxel is from northwest Wyoming, but his music has taken him from one corner of America to another; from Berklee School of Music in Boston to the University of Southern California, learning, playing and teaching. Along the way, he developed into a prominent guitarist, composer and songwriter, performing and touring with musicians such as Ronnie Bedford, Warren Chiasson, Sonny Wilkenson, Bobby Shew, Frank Mantooth, Jack Reilly, James Naughton, Chris Merz, Mike Dowling, Pete Huttlinger and Bruce Escovitz.
He also made a stop in Winfield, Kansas, where in 2003 he won the National Flatpicking Championship.
For several years, he’s been back home in Wyoming, working as a guitarist, songwriter, composer and teacher. He maintains a busy performance schedule both as a jazz guitarist and an acoustic guitarist playing his own music.
Jeff teaches at Northwest College in Riverton, Wyoming and writes columns for Flatpicking Guitar magazine and Mel Bay’s online magazine Guitar Sessions. He has written several books for guitar, his most recent being Flatpicking up the Neck for Mel Bay Publications. (Last update 2018)
Jon Weisberger
Jon Weisberger spent more than two decades as a bluegrass bassist and songwriter. Born in Ohio, he earned a degree in Music Composition in California and lived in New York before returning to the Midwest in the early 1980s and immersing himself in the bluegrass scene. In 1992 he became a founding member of Union Springs, which released three well-received CDs before disbanding in 1998. The following year, he joined The Wildwood Valley Boys, touring extensively and appearing on their I’m A Believer CD. As the Cincinnati area’s first-call bass player, he recorded and/or performed with a host of area groups, as well as bluegrass legends Jimmy Martin and Hazel Dickens.
After moving to Nashville in 2003, Jon toured regularly in the US, Canada and Europe with Chris Jones & The Nightdrivers, the Roland White Band and Canadian fiddler April Verch, as well as making Nashville appearances with artists like Melonie Cannon, Kathy Chiavola, Barbara Lamb, the Sidemen and the Gibson Mandolin Club. He has also earned a growing reputation as a songwriter, penning songs for Del McCoury, Dwight McCall and Jim Van Cleve, as well as one of the most popular bluegrass songs of 2001, the Chapmans’ “Losing Again.”
His Beginning Bluegrass Bass instructional video has remained in print for more than a dozen years, and in 2005 he taught at the Augusta Heritage Center’s Bluegrass Week and both sessions of the British Columbia Bluegrass Workshops.
In addition to his musical roles, Jon has won recognition as a bluegrass journalist, earning the IBMA’s Print Media Person of the Year award in 2000, its Best Liner Notes honor in 2001, and the Charlie Lamb Award for Excellence in Country Music Journalism in 2005. (Last update 2018)
Roland White
Roland White has had a long and fascinating career as a mandolinist and guitarist with some of the biggest names in bluegrass history. It started with his family band, the Country Boys who appeared several times on the Andy Griffith show before changing their name to the Kentucky Colonels. He first played with Bill Monroe in 1967. He stayed with Monroe for nearly two years and recorded on three sessions. Although he played guitar with Monroe, Roland White is primarily known as a mandolin player. In 1969 he took a job with another bluegrass pioneer, Lester Flatt in his band, Nashville Grass. He briefly reunited with his brothers Clarence and Eric, a grouping that was tragically cut short when Clarence was killed in an auto accident. Then Roland joined Country Gazette, a band that also included former Blue Grass Boy Byron Berline. In 1988 he joined the Nashville Bluegrass Band. After ten years and five albums, he left the NBB to form the Roland White Band. Roland has received many awards over the years including IBMA, SPGMA, and Grammy awards earned as a member of the Nashville Bluegrass Band. The Roland White Band’s debut album was nominated for the Best Bluegrass Album Grammy in 2003.
Roland has a reputation as a gentle and patient teacher. He began teaching privately in 1994 and teaches in many workshops and camps, including Augusta Heritage Week, Camp Bluegrass, RockyGrass Academy, Bluegrass Masters Camp, Bluegrass at the Beach, Nashcamp, Roanoke Bluegrass Weekend, and Kaufman Camp. In the 2000s, he released his own instruction book/CD sets. (Last update 2018)
Brooks Williams
Brooks Williams has honed his songs on stages from Dallas to London, Istanbul to Anchorage, Toronto to Dublin, Detroit to Glasgow, Nairobi to Belfast, New York to Sardinia. He’s gigged with Taj Mahal, John Hammond, Eddi Reader, Paul Jones, Billy Bragg, Little Feat, Maria Muldaur, Shawn Colvin, Boo Hewerdine and Leo Kottke, to name but a few.
Brooks walks the line between blues and Americana, but there’s a bit of jazz and rockabilly thrown in for good measure. Imagine Doc Watson, Willie Nelson, Lonnie Johnson and Blind Boy Fuller sitting in a bar having a jam. Of him, Martin Simpson says “He’s a lovely player, a lovely singer, a great writer and a lovely man.”
Born in Statesboro, Georgia, Brooks moved to Boston in his late teens, eventually moving to England, where he’s lived for many years. He was named one of the Top 100 Artists by WUMB-Radio in Boston, and AmericanaUK says “It goes without saying that he is an absolute master with a six string but Williams’ talent doesn’t end there… On top of it all he has a beautiful voice that you just melt into. Brooks Williams is impossible not to like.”
Brooks devotes a portion of each year to leading workshops on Blues and Americana guitar, as well as roots music songwriting, and you can see a host of videos here. (Last update 2018)
Rene Worst
Rene Worst has been a professional bassist since 1971. His virtuosic and supportive bass playing has been a Canadian treasure for many years on both acoustic and electric basses. He is as gifted on fretless as he is on acoustic, a rarity in the music industry.
Born in Ifar, New Guinea in 1954, he moved to Canada with his family in 1960, settling on the West Coast where he grew up and went to school. At an early age he showed an aptitude for music, in particular jazz bass, and it wasn’t long before he was out establishing himself as a leading bassist. The list of noted artists he’s performed with is really too long to list here, but here are some of them: Chet Baker, David Bowie, Poison, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Aerosmith, Dr. Hook, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Pass, Herb Ellis, Ferron, Phoebe Snow, Beverly D’Angelo, Buddy Greco, Martha Reeves, Sheena Easton, Barney Kessel, Larry Corryell, and that’s just a short list…
Rene has been a regular instructor at several camps including the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop; he’s also one of the founding members of the noted fusion band “Skywalk” and has anchored and produced six recordings with them. (Last update 2022)
Keith Yoder
Keith Yoder has taught guitar, banjo, mandolin, bass, fiddle, and resophonic guitar full time since 1994. In recent years, he has become the go-to guy for jam leadership as well, leading jams at many of the major acoustic music camps in North America. He loves helping folks, both first-timers and veterans, learn the joy of playing with others.
He’s released several CDs, and most recently one where he plays all instrumental parts and sings all vocal parts. (Last update 2023)
Kailin Yong
Kailin (“Ky-Lynn”) Yong has covered more musical ground than most of us cover in three lifetimes. A few of the high points:
He grew up in the deep south. Well, Southeast Asia, actually, in Singapore. At age 13, he won a National Music Competition and was “discovered” by a visiting professor from the Royal Academy of Music in London. He wanted to attend the Royal Academy, but his parents (and his country) had other plans for him, and he spent another 9 years in Singapore, in school and the army. He did his graduate study at the Vienna Academy of Music for violin performance and chamber music.
On coming to the US in 1999, he made his first year’s living playing in the Bay Area BART stations (subway) while studying the jazz of Stephane Grappelli, the tango of Astor Piazzola and a host of other styles.
He’s studied various improvisational fiddle styles with Art Lande, Darol Anger and Roshan Bhartiya. He founded the groups Strings of Tao and the award-winning Boulder Acoustic Society, and has integrated his music with various musical styles including modern dance, theater and film.
In 2004, he was awarded the Daniel Pearl Memorial Violin at the Mark O’Connor Strings conference, and for 2009-2010, he’s been awarded an Artist in Residency position for the city of Boulder.
He’s dedicated to making peace through music, and to helping others play; he’s highly-respected for his teaching, and specifically his ability to help folks get started improvising. (Last update 2018)
Radim Zenkl
Radim Zenkl, is a mandolin player, composer and instructor. Originally from the Czech Republic, he began playing the mandolin at thirteen, and discovered bluegrass by listening to records that were smuggled in to his communist country. The sound of a bluegrass mandolin initiated the spark that launched a decision to play music as a career at the age of seventeen and subsequently led Radim beyond bluegrass to an eclectic array of styles.
He escaped from Czechoslovakia four months before the fall of communism and settled in the San Francisco Bay area.
Radim won the US National Mandolin Championship in 1992. His style features progressive original and eastern European traditional music flavored with bluegrass, jazz, new age, flamenco, rock, classical and other influences. Radim is at the cutting edge of the mandolin’s future, designing new mandolin family instruments and creating new playing styles. He has invented a masterful technique, the ‘Zenkl style,’ in which a single mandolin sounds like two. According to David Grisman: “Zenkl has re-invented the mandolin in several different ways.”
Besides collaborating with the top musicians of the acoustic music scene, Radim has built up an extensive repertoire for solo mandolin, mandola and Irish bouzouki. He has recorded several solo CDs (released on Acoustic Disc, Shanachie and Ventana) and has appeared on more than sixty other recordings. Radim’s worldwide performing and teaching credentials include guest appearances at prestigious music institutions such as the Berklee College of Music in Boston and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland. (Last update 2023)