Fall Festival 2011 Lineup

Town Mountain - Thurs, Sept 22nd 7:00p.m. TV Recording for series; Friday, Sept 23rd 6:30-7:45p.m.
Artist website

A common thread that binds us to music is familiarity with tradition and the unexpectedness of progression.  In a time when bluegrass music is all over the place with it’s predictability.  Whether it is the crisp clean sound of the contemporary side, the tones of a sixty-year tradition, or the jam band mentality, you can see it coming.  It’s all great and these guys are happy to be right in the middle of this bluegrass gumbo.
You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again, “Town Mountain’s not your grand daddy’s bluegrass”, or “Town Mountain is a great traditional bluegrass band”.  Fortunately both of these statements are true and false all at the same time therefore canceling each other out and in turn making it hard to pigeonhole just what Town Mountain can be called.
How do they maintain this sound, you ask?  A lot of it has to do with influence.  Everybody in the band brings their own unique musical background to the table.  Some of the boys grew up listening to classic country such as George Jones and Waylon Jennings, while others were paying attention to Jimi Hendrix and The Grateful Dead.  But at some point in time they all started to expand their musical horizons.  Some found jazz, some found punk, some found Americana, but it’s safe to say that all of them, at about the same time, either found or started to pay more attention to one of America’s oldest musical traditions, bluegrass.

Renaissance Rodeo featuring Matt Urmy, Cowboy Jack Clement, Jonell Mosser and more . . .
 Friday, Sept 23rd 9:30-11:00p.m. TV Recording for series
*Sponsored by Stonekeepers
 
Matt Urmy is motivated by his artistic passion, his music grows each year—a true “lifetime artist.” This is fueled by his driving and overwhelming work ethic, as well as his compelling love for music and language. He is currently working on a New album with the legendary Cowboy Jack Clement, as a follow up to his live show: The Renaissance Rodeo Show…which is a variety show that highlights the best up and coming songwriting talent, as well as, paying tribute and homage to those who have come before. The show debuted in Nashville in November 2011, to rave reviews.

The Renaissance Rodeo will be recorded for the Jammin at Hippie Jack's TV series. Artists in the Rodeo will include: Matt Urmy, Cowboy Jack Clement, Jonell Mosser, Kat Starr and Greg Horne and more.

Shaun Murphy Band
Saturday, Sept 24th 9:30-10:45p.m. TV Recording for series
Artist website

Starting out in Detroit, she really started her musical career when, after a number of her own bands, as well as a short contract with Motown-Rare Earth Records, she joined forces with the Motor City Icon; Bob Seger, and has been singing him off and on since 1973. Through the affiliation with Bob, she went on to work with such greats as Eric Clapton, the Moody Blues, Bruce Hornsby, Ted Nugent, John Hiatt, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Alice Cooper, and Eddie Money. One of her lengthiest stays was with another musical icon; Little Feat where she was one of the lead singers for 16 years, co-writing a number of the bands songs in the later number of their CD’s, with Bill Payne, Paul Barrere, Fred Tackett.

Outlaw Gospel with Special Guest Darrell Scott & Friends
Sunday, Sept 25th 6:30-8:00p.m.
*Sponsored by Carol Leigh Winsett Bilbrey

We will close the festival Sunday evening with another recorded Outlaw Gospel Hour with Special Guest Darrell Scott featuring Jay Clark, Doug & Telisha Williams, Warren Gently, Blue Mother Tupelo and many more... Make plans to stay through this performance, it is going to be special.

 
Jay Clark
Friday, Sept 23rd 4:10-5:30p.m.; Sunday, Sept 25th 11:50a.m.-12:50p.m.
*Sponsored by Berry Basket Bill
Artist website

Jay Clark has his roots well grounded in the East Tennessee region. Originally from Winchester, TN, and currently residing on 31.5 acres in Rockford, TN, Jay considers Knoxville and the surrounding mountains his adopted home.
Jay began playing guitar and writing songs during his high school years and has been actively involved in songwriting and performing ever since. After leaving Winchester to attend Maryville College in 1992, Jay spent the summers of 1993 and 1994 performing at Dollywood and various bluegrass festivals with Keith Garrett (The Boxcars, Blue Moon Rising) in a traditional bluegrass brother-style duet. In 1995, Jay transferred to the University of Tennessee and met Robinella (www.robinella.com). They started singing together at churches and gradually put together a traditional bluegrass band, The Stringbeans, with the help of Cruz Contreras (The Black Lillies, CC Stringband). The Stringbeans played around the Knoxville area from 1997 to 1999 and were voted the "Best Bluegrass Group" in 1999 by the Readers Poll of Knoxville's alternative weekly, the Metropulse.

The New Familiars
Friday, Sept 23rd 8:05-9:15p.m.
Artist website

For Years now, North Carolina's The New Familiars have been touring & playing their own style of American Rock & Roll wherever and whenever they can. Drawing from the vast influences that they've collected throughout their careers, this quartet has shaped a sound that combines the nitty-gritty roots music of the Appalachia with guitar-drenched-drum-driven anthems of Rock & Roll. Through collaborative songwriting, howling harmonies, & multi-instrumental talent, their show can take you from a back porch hoe-down to a full on rock show at the change of an instrument.
Having played hundreds of shows from the sunny beaches of FL to the bustling cities of MA and from the Smokies to the Rockies, these gentlemen have seen some miles and have some stories. On an almost constant state of tour, they have managed to release a few EPs, a VINYL single, and are currently on tour with their NEW LIVE ALBUM; all the while continuing work on a full length album, Between the Moon and Morning Light.

The Barefoot Movement
Friday, Sept 23rd 2:50-3:50p.m.
Artist website

The Barefoot Movement is a trio of immensely talented musicians from North Carolina and Tennessee whose music successfully melds Americana influences with the invigoration of acoustic modern rock and jazz. Their sound simultaneously captures the rustic beauty of old Southern front porch Bluegrass improvisation while being immediately accessible to the modern era.
This evolution of sound can be heard in their latest record "Footwork," a polished opus showcasing the group's maturation and talent. Noah's voice is subtly piercing while displaying a remarkable range, from the toe-tapping, barn-raising Calico Jack to the melodic, nostalgic Tobacco Road. Barefoot Movement's newest album is nothing short of addictive. Embedded in each track are compelling visual evocations, complex tonal twists, and a downright good time.

Greg Horne
Friday, Sept 23rd 12:20-1:10p.m.; Saturday, Sept 24th 12:30-1:30p.m. with Warren Gently
*Sponsored by Berry Basket Bill
Artist website

The essence of Americana is that the most enduring artists dig deep into tradition and then find their way to a unique, unmistakeable voice.  Knoxville’s Greg Horne has taken on that mission with impressive results.
In 2010, Horne celebrated the tandem release of a new CD, "Basically Sane," and a DVD, "Live at Hippie Jack's.”  On both he performs solo, with just a guitar or fiddle.  Greg uses his instruments as equal duet partners, combined with finely tuned lyrics that have drawn comparisons to John Prine and Vic Chesnutt.
In his songs, Horne tells the stories of individuals who have become separated from the group, stumbling into the startling comedy of their own humanity.  A discarded rag doll considers life in the laundry pile; ex-president Jimmy Carter encounters a Brownie Scout while on a walk in the park; pianist Glenn Gould’s late-night phone call spins into a comic reverie on music and loneliness.
Greg Horne's literate lyrics, gourmet guitar picking and fiddling have built his reputation as a best kept secret that needs to be heard.

Little Johnny Kantreed
Friday, Sept 23rd 11:10a.m.-12:05p.m.
*Sponsored by Stonekeepers
Artist website

Winner of the MCBS Bluesey Award for Best Other Blues Instrumentalist of the Year and Nashville Blues Award for Best Specialty Instrumentalist of the Year. Also nominated for Acoustic Blues Act of the Year, and "Acoustic Alley Blues" for Blues CD of the Year.
Downhome acoustic folk blues. LJK was born and raised in the Nashville, TN area. In the late '70's, solo artists were a dime a dozen in Nashville. So LJK packed up his powder blue Vega and moved to the Daytona Beach area of Florida, playing happy hours and opening for beach bands. Deciding that a steady paycheck would be a good way of life, he entered the radio scene and DJ'd morning drive times in Greenville, KY and Winchester, VA. Realizing that he liked Tennessee better than the nomadic life of radio, he landed back in Nashville.

The Danberrys
Friday, Sept 23rd 1:30-2:30pm River Stage
*Sponsored by CHAR on the Square in Cookeville
Artist website

Whether one calls it kismet or destiny, some things are just meant to be, like The Danberrys. Dorothy Daniel and Ben DeBerry both began playing music at the age of ten and joined talents when they met in college in 1998. After two years of performing occasionally at parties and small apartment gatherings, Dorothy and Ben went separate ways for five years before realizing they probably should have never parted. They were married in October 2006.
Ben had several years experience of leading bands with his sizzling guitar and laid-back lyricism when Dorothy joined his projects as a guest vocalist in 2007. It soon became evident that the duo deserved a life of its own and The Danberrys were born. Drawing deep from the blues, folk, bluegrass and soul/funk traditions, the Danberrys deliver inspired original tunes featuring strong harmonies and dynamic musicianship. Company Store, their first EP, was released in April 2010 and was followed by the single Shady Grove in June 2011. The group is currently recording several new songs for upcoming projects. The Danberrys have worked and performed with some of Nashville’s best musicians including Ethan Ballinger, Ryan Cavanaugh, Ryan Furst, Geoff Henderson, Christian Sedelmeyer, Jake Winebrenner and Mike Witcher. Their engaging live shows are always energetic and soul-filled affairs with a healthy dose of improvisation and an emphasis on having a Danberry good time!

Doug & Telisha Williams and the DT's
Saturday, Sept 24th 4:30-5:45p.m.; Sunday, Sept 25th Doug & Telisha with Jonathan Byrd 1:10-2:10p.m.
*Sponsored by Berry Basket Bill
Artist website

Doug and Telisha Williams hail from Martinsville, Virginia, where boarded up factories stand as monuments to how fast the world can change. When they write and sing songs about dying small towns, they know what they’re talking about. The unemployment rate where they live is 20.2 %. When you hear them sing songs about a couple of hard luck kids who made some bad decisions and wound up in jail, you’ve got to remember that Doug & Telisha are still good friends with those kid’s family. The songs for their latest record, Ghost of the Knoxville Girl, weren’t written by people who like to imagine what it’s like “out there,” instead they came from stories told across kitchen tables or between friends after a couple of pitchers at the Ten Pin.
Wherever Doug and Telisha go they always make quick friends with their audience, pulling them right into their lives. “That’s what it’s all about for us,” says Doug, “being out there, playing on the road, meeting people. Everything else is just... everything else.”
No matter how far they roam, Doug and Telisha always find their way back home. A place that holds tight to the intricacies and contradictions of life in the south today. A place where old time religion, superstition, rundown bars, gravel parking lots and boarded up factories tell stories that wind up being songs. A place where in just one set, Doug & Telisha can still send audience members to their feet in applause, to their knees in prayer, and back to the bar to buy another beer.

Tommy Womack and the Rush to Judgment
Saturday, Sept 24th 6:45-7:45p.m.
*Sponsored by Local Color Productions
Artist website

Tommy Womack is a published author and successful singer-songwriter with songs recorded by Jimmy Buffett, Todd Snider, Jason Ringenberg, Dan Baird, Scott Kempner and others as well as several solo releases with a new full length album due out in early 2012, in addition to continuing his other band collaboration with AMA instrumentalist of the year Will Kimbrough and always writing towards his next book. "Womack leavens searing EMOTIONAL HONESTY with OBSERVATIONAL WIT and WRY WISE-GUY CHARM as he moves among rock, country and blues.”  ~ The Philadelphia Inquirer

 Dehlia Low
Saturday, Sept 24th 8:05-9:15p.m.
*Sponsored by The Law Office of Donna Simpson
Artist website

Dehlia Low’s vocal harmony and instrumentation reflect a deep connection to traditional music with modern arrangements and relevant, smart songwriting. The band combines their gripping, rustic-flavored vocal style with extraordinary instrumental prowess in original songs that feel at once both old and new pushing their sound into the Americana genre. The group’s sound is focused on original music rooted in bluegrass but with a distinctive country/folk feel true to their southern Appalachian roots.
Dehlia Low’s eagerly-anticipated Rebel Records debut ‘Ravens & Crows’ hit the streets on August 2nd. Produced by Travis Book of The Infamous Stringdusters, this album helps to firmly establish Dehlia Low as one of the most compelling and distinctive young groups on the acoustic music scene today. With their tasteful, sometimes moody blending of different styles, the group has created a unique sound that already seems fully mature and established.
Dehlia Low formed in late 2007 as part of Asheville, North Carolina’s roots music renaissance. Singers Anya Hinkle (from Blacksburg, VA on fiddle) and Stacy Claude (from Atlanta, GA on guitar) pulled together a group of talented pickers from the region: Aaron Ballance on Dobro (Winston-Salem, NC), Bryan Clendenin on mandolin (Hurricane, WV) and Greg Stiglets on bass (Jackson, MS).

Flea Market Hustlers
Saturday, Sept 24th 3:10-4:10p.m.; Sunday, Sept 25th 3:50-4:50p.m.
*Sponsored by Cosmopolitan Bar & Grill
Artist website

The Flea Market Hustlers have been on a four-year quest for music, mayhem, and the perfect taco. The Hustlers' unique sound has continued to evolve, with the band playing festivals all over the Southeast, as well as weekly shows in their hometown of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Their energetic, funky jam-grass style has cultivated an enthusiastic following.

Blind Corn Liquor Pickers
Saturday, Sept 24th 1:50-2:50
*Sponsored by City Bonding, Jerry McDonald
Artist website

The Blind Corn Liquor Pickers, sharing many of the qualities of the moonlight distilled intoxicant from which they are named, play bluegrass whose origins are difficult to ascertain. As clear corn liquor courses through an old car radiator, old-time traditions mix with modern methods in ways that can be unsettling, inspiring, euphoric or blindness-inducing. It's bluegrass that burns going down, warms your gut, and then hits your head like a thunderbolt of white lightning.
"Plenty of songs in the genre call the listener to imagine riding trains and buses or to think back to the old homestead, but nobody travels the lost highways or dreams of the log cabin on the hill the way the BCLP do, or with rhythms akin to theirs.  It can get confusing, all right, but don't worry. It's the best kind of confusing -- all surprise and delight, with the kind of shock that engenders unexpected laughter."

Warren Gently
Friday, Sept 23rd 10:30-11:00a.m.; Saturday, Sept 24th 12:30-1:30p.m. with Greg Horne
*Sponsored by Berry Basket Bill
Artist website

Warren Gently was born in Alabama and raised by wild dogs in the forest until found by Gypsies who rescued him and taught him to play music. When he lost his adopted family in a tragic crash on the Hurricane Bridge, he was taken in by an elderly African American gentleman who nursed him back to health and gave him a $3 guitar. The rest is history.

Jonathan Byrd
Saturday, Sept 24th 11:10-12:10p.m.; Sunday, Sept 25th 1:10-2:10p.m. with Doug & Telisha Williams
*Sponsored by Gondola Pizza House of Cookeville
Artist website

“This rootsy North Carolinian may be the most buzzed-about new songwriter in folkdom. He displays John Prine's gift for stark little songs that tell big, complex stories, Guy Clark's lean melodicism, Lyle Lovett's wry mischief, and Bill Morrissey's knack for the revealing image.” — Scott Alarik, Boston Globe

Alan Darveaux
Saturday, Sept 24th 10:30-11:00a.m.
Artist website

Alan Darveaux was born in 1946 in Connecticut. He grew up on Long Island Sound. His interest in acoustic music started in high school and led to a college group known as the "Newcomers". The dulcimer caught his eyes and ears while visiting friends at Berea College in KY back in 1967. He left Berea with all the information, books and records he could find on the dulcimer. Since then he has eagerly sought as much history, lore and makers of the dulcimer as he can fit into his life.

Blue Mother Tupelo
Sunday, Sept 25th 5:10-6:20p.m.
Artist website

Rising up from the dusty Delta lowlands and muddy bayou banks of Indianola, Mississippi through the bluffs of Memphis to the mountains of east Tennessee, comes the unique Southern Soul sound of Blue Mother Tupelo.
Blue Mother Tupelo has shared shows with and/or recorded with artists such as: Delbert McClinton, The Subdudes, Leon Russell, Mindy Smith, T-Model Ford, Rodney Crowell, The North Mississippi Allstars, Willie Nelson, Robert Lockwood Jr., Tony Joe White, Miranda Lambert and many other wonderful and popular artists.
Blue Mother Tupelo carries their Swampadelic sound wherever the music leads across the U.S.A., most often throughout the Southeast and has performed in Mexico and in Switzerland.

Jeff Barbara & Sarah Pirkle
Sunday, Sept 25th 11:50-12:50p.m.
Artist website

Jeff & Sarah have been married for 14 years, and make their home in Walland, TN in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains national park. In 2000, they won 1st place for their participation in Merlefest's "Chris Austin Songwriting Contest".
Over the past decade Jeff & Sarah played too many shows to count and have opened for Nanci Griffith, BR549, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Chris Knight, Larry Cordle, Tony Rice, The Steep Canyon Rangers, Yonder Mountain String Band, Terri Hendrix & Lloyd Maines, Jim Lauderdale, Jon Randall Stewart, David Peterson, David Allan Coe, David Grier, Rod Picott, Walt Wilkins, Danny Barnes, James King, Dale Anne Bradley, Pat Flynn, John Cowan, Tony Furtado, The Kruger Brothers, Steve Young, Randy Weeks, Duane Jarvis, Randy Kohrs, Phil Lee, Karl Shiflett, The Dempseys, Chip Taylor, Chris Jones, and many, many more.

Keep the Change
Sunday, Sept 25th 10:30-11:30a.m.
Artist website

Steeped in a rich tradition of American bluegrass, “Keep The Change” infuses a healthy dose of more modern influences. Theirs is an edgy display of Americana music that spans the full range of emotions. From blistering-fast bluegrass, moderate-tempo story songs to heart-felt ballads, “Keep The Change” offers up a variety of listening experiences.
The original songs dominate the material. The music is largely written, hand-carved and tooled by the band. Scattered throughout the show are a few non-original tunes that are simply too good to be ignored.   
Whether you’re heading down the road looking for a busting-out good time or a quiet and lazy musical experience, “Keep The Change” will get you there.