Jack Blocker
Jack Blocker is an Americana singer-songwriter whose music is rooted in sincerity, storytelling,and a deep love for his home state of Texas. Drawing inspiration from Texan legends likeTownes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson, Jack describes his music as “friendly,honest, and Texan”— a reflection of both his lyrical style and the atmosphere of his live shows.Whether he’s jumping around on stage with a full band or singing solo with just an acousticguitar, Jack’s performances are captivating and compelling. “My goal is to give some new life toeach song that only exists in that moment,” he says. One particularly memorable show inNashville was performed completely unplugged after lightning took out the power at the venue.The crowd stayed, lit the room with phone lights, and Jack played the full hour-long set withoutany mics or production. “It was a really special evening,” he says.After releasing his debut single “Big Jefe” in August 2023, Jack competed as a contestant onseason 22 of American Idol. First appearing on the show with a memorable performance of hisoriginal song “I Was Wong,” Jack continued to impress the judges and delight audiences,ultimately placing third on the nationally televised show.With a much-anticipated debut album coming this fall, Jack is focused on building a lastingcommunity around his music, staying true to his voice, and writing songs that will beremembered when people look back on folk/country music from this era. “I feel like we’re at thestarting line of a race and we’re about to jump off the blocks,” Jack says. “I’m really excited.”
Chloe Kimes
Chloe Kimes is a Michigan born singer, songwriter and bandleader currently based in Nashville, TN. In 2022 Kimes independently released her self titled debut album — voted “Listener’s Choice Album of the Year” by WYCE Radio as well as landing her a spot on NPR Music’s Top Ten Nashville Artists on the Rise. In 2024 she released her latest single “Coors Light” following its immense viral popularity. Kimes’ spirited alt-country outfit offers a striking live show with a timeless sound, her tireless voice leading the way, her sentiments forging their own new space in the country americana scene.
Big Fur w/ Fescue
BIG FUR cultivates an original sound that takes southern rock, country, and bluegrass to its highest dynamic peaks, and most electrifying psychedelic edges. The quintet formed in late 2023 and have since performed at many celebrated venues and events including The Orange Peel, Salvage Station, The Pour House, The Grey Eagle; North Carolina Folk Festival, AVLFest, and Shakori Hills Festival of Music and Dance. ** fescue is a folk trio from Danville, Virginia. Comprised of Nick Johnson (guitar, banjo, vocals), Hunter Applegate (mandolin, vocals), and Chris Stockard (bass, vocals), they create a new take on an old classic. Inspired by bluegrass and old time Appalachian music, mixed with rock, jazz, and R&B, they create a sound that is uniquely their own.
Woody Woodworth & The Piners w/ Nathan James Hall
Woody Woodworth & The Piners hail from Richmond, VA. Established in 2016, the Piners are named for the bygone expression to Pine – a deep longing for something or someone. Influenced by Virginia’s deep musical history and Appalachian culture, Woody Woodworth & The Piners fuse country, bluegrass, and rock and roll with traditional storytelling to create a powerful and timeless sound. One part Waylon, another part Springsteen, Woodworth’s honest vocals are backed by a no-holds-bar orchestration of sawing fiddles, electric guitars, and driving rhythm. Woody Woodworth released his first full length solo LP in 2018 titled Virginia. Two singles in 2020, Cherokee Maggie and Long Way Down, and a live record titled live at Richmond Music Hall. Woody Woodworth & The Piners most recent releases include two full-length LPs titled Outlaws & Saints (2023) & Rebels & Dreamers (2024). Woody Woodworth & The Piners have supported and shared the stage with major artists such as Patterson Hood (Drive By Truckers), 49 Winchester, Red Clay Strays, Town Mountain, Lost Dog Street Band, Matt Heckler, Sarah Shook & The Disarmers, Model Citizen, JD McPherson, Melissa Carper, William Elliot Whitmore and Many others.
Cordovas w/ Time Sawyer
The story of Cordovas is one of rock ’n’ roll seekers, hammering away in search not just for a platonic ideal of their freewheeling sound, but also for some greater truth about our experience as humans. The band is fueled by the long strange trip of frontman Joe Firstman, who had a circuitous path through his young adulthood — spat out from the major label system, a stint as a bandleader on Last Call With Carson Daly, and finally finding his way back to himself, a mystic classicist who has guided Cordovas through their own series of twists and turns. That includes their new record The Rose of Aces, which finds them returning with their finest collection of music yet. Cordovas’ origins go all the way back the early ‘10s, when Firstman decided he was best with a band around him. After releasing a self-titled debut and undergoing various iterations, things really started cooking when guitarist Lucca Soria joined the fold. Soon the band’s vision cohered further, and they signed to ATO, releasing the quick one-two of That Santa Fe Channel in 2018 and Destiny Hotel in 2020. Cordovas is a state of constant flow: Firstman, Soria, and their various co-conspirators gathering in their twin outposts — a farm in Nashville, and a hideout in the artist community of the Baja California town Todos Santos. Before the dust remotely began to settle on Destiny Hotel, Cordovas were already back in the shop, working up a trove of songs from which The Rose of Aces would emerge.
Lou Hazel
Lou Hazel grew up along the Allegheny River, where New York meets Pennsylvania andNorthern Appalachia slips into quiet obscurity. In a landscape of cold towns, blue-collar fatigue,and early brushes with hardship, music wasn’t inherited—it was uncovered. There were novenues, no mentors, no real sense of a scene… only what you could scrape together withcuriosity and a cassette deck.That absence—of direction, of mentors, of art—shaped Lou’s songs as much as any influence.His music echoes the loneliness of those forgotten towns and the strange resilience it takes tocreate something where nothing was planted. Blending folk, indie, and an eye for the overlooked,Lou writes like someone who’s learned to pay attention. His songs are spare, vivid, andweathered with warmth. After years of solo touring and home recording, Lou found grounding in Durham, NorthCarolina, where a vibrant music scene and chosen community have helped shape his recentwork. His latest record, Riot of the Red, captures the urge to get away from all of it—the news,the noise, the weight of a world gone sideways—and find stillness in the simplest things: a longdrive, a bare sky, a familiar chord. Lou Hazel makes music for those who had to teachthemselves how to listen.
Brian K And The Parkway + Folkknot
Brian K & The Parkway was born on a Jersey boardwalk, reared in a Virginia basement, and developed on stages spanning the east coast and midwest. Veteran Washington, DC area musicians Brian K. Pagels and Stephen Russ formed the band while on a Bruce Springsteen themed pilgrimage, later adding guitarist Mike Shade. Their roots-oriented yet expansive take on Rock & Roll has been compared to The Boss himself as well as Tom Petty, John Mayer, Elvis Costello, and Drive-By Truckers. Folkknot is a seafaring six-piece band based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Never afraid to sail against the wind, Folkknot crafts enchanting indie-folk-pop-rock escapism that beats back against the mainstream current of our modern era, harking at the essence of folk storytelling elements from yesteryear. Captained by frontman Grey Hyatt’s vivid songwriting & lucid vision for his songs, Folkknot’s eclectic instrumentation provides a lush soundscape that brings their songs & stories to life.
Pony Bradshaw w/ Jesse Fox
In her2008 filmic auto-portrait, Beaches of Agnès, artist and filmmaker Agnès Varda says, “if we opened people up, we’d find landscapes.” For Varda, those landscapes were beaches. For singer-songwriter Pony Bradshaw, they’re the hushed hills and deep valleys of North Georgia. And from the first aching thrum of “Ginseng Daddy,” the opening track off his latest record, Thus Spoke the Fool, he’s inviting us back to that beautiful, haunted place, his home place, to visit again. Similar to his previous two offerings, the tracks on Thus Spoke the Fool feel less like songs you hear, and more like places you go, odes to the land and language of Appalachia, lyrical topographies paying faithful homage to the region where Bradshaw put down roots nearly two decades ago. The songs are lush with mountain laurel and tobacco leaves, taking listeners to mill towns, and American Legions, and Mineral Bluff. They’re flushed with the flood of the Coosa and Hiawassee Rivers, tense with the tenor of a buck dancer’s tapping feet. Recorded in part in the sanctuary of an old church outside of Athens, Georgia, Thus Spoke the Fool is a taut,10-song collection, and the third and final installment in a trilogy that began with 2021’s critically lauded Calico Jim. What began as a bluegrass record alchemized during recording sessions in Nashville to create a more hybrid, textured sound, heavy on fiddle and pedal steel. Beyond any strict genre classifications, however, it’s mountain music that bears witness to a maligned and misunderstood region by a songwriter forever contending with the notion of what it means to call a place home.
Emerging Artists Series: Graham Sharp w/ Abigail Dowd
On How Did We Do It, Graham Sharp, celebrated songwriter and founding member of the Grammy-winning Steep Canyon Rangers, delivers a solo album steeped in gratitude, humor,and love. Building on the stripped-down charm of his 2021 debut, Truer Picture, this collection showcases Sharp’s ability to craft thoughtful songs that evoke warmth and optimism.“This is a group of songs I’ve written over the last few years that loosely fell into the basket of love songs,” Sharp shares. “All of these tunes are tied to specific moments and places; so forme, it almost reads like a photo album through the past decade or so. Most of these tunes fit nicely onto the banjo, so the bluegrass setting seemed like the obvious choice. Living inWestern NC, I’m lucky to have some of the finest bluegrass musicians anywhere as neighbors. This group had never played together as a band so we had a lot of fun putting these little songstogether.”The album’s first single, “A Good Year,” exemplifies Sharp’s ability to weave vivid imagery into his songwriting, painting a vivid picture of a carefree Southern escape, blending nostalgia,resilience, and celebration. Reflecting on the song, Sharp explains, “We were in a bar on Frenchmen Street in New Orleans, listening to a band while visiting my wife’s family. The bandstarted playing ‘Come Together,’ and just as the singer hit the line, ‘hair down below his knees,’ she ripped off her wig and threw it on the floor. My mind was blown.” The chorus serves as both a reflection and a resolution: a desire to move forward, shake off the past, and make the most of the time ahead. Ultimately, it’s a song of renewal, optimism, and letting the good times roll.Driven by Sharp’s distinctive banjo playing and deep, resonant vocals, How Did We Do It moves effortlessly between poignant ballads and lighthearted tracks. Its title track encapsulates therecord’s overarching message—a statement of wonder looking back on challenges overcome, expressed with humility and pride. Sharp describes the album as a “thank you” to his family anda reflection of the joy and the difficulties that mark life’s milestones. Musically, the album embraces Sharp’s bluegrass roots while exploring new textures and collaborations. The project draws inspiration from legendary artists like Earl Scruggs, Terry Allen, and John Hartford, whose influence is felt in the album’s raw energy and storytelling. **FEATURING LOCAL EMERGING ARTIST: ABIGAIL DOWD Singer/songwriter/guitarist Abigail Dowd grew up under the longleaf pines in the Sandhills region of North Carolina. Known for her storytelling and command of an audience, she has been called “a writer of the highest caliber” (The All Scene Eye). Her soulful voice and unique classical guitar style caught the attention of Acoustic Guitar Magazine, which described the album “Not What I Seem”: “The guitar-driven introspective folk of the 1970s [as] a touchstone, but so are blues and roots rock ’n’ roll.” Pulling from her heritage of storytelling and determination, Dowd weaves hints of Celtic melodies with the soulful gospel of the south to create a sound that dances between folk, rock and blues.
ABE PARTRIDE + JACK BARKSDALE
Abe Partridge is a heralded musician, singer/songwriter, visual artist, and podcaster based in Mobile, Alabama. His 2018 debut, Cotton Fields and Blood For Days earnhim rave reviews, with Tony Paris saying in The Bitter Southerner: “He plays guitar the same way he writes lyrics, bashing the strings with abandon until they are just about to come loose, then beautifully picking the notes until every last word falls into place. More to the point, Partridge writes to make you sit up and think. He wants to jar your reality. Sometimes, his lyrics are sly and subtle. Sometimes they come at you with a roar and thunder, as if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were approaching, and the heavens were opening up to herald a warning.”Since the release of his debut, Partridge has toured relentlessly, including several tours of the Netherlands and the U.K. developing a reputation for moving, passionate, and sometimes comedic, performances at prestigious songwriter festivals such as 30A Songwriters Festival, Frank Brown Songwriters Festival, and Americanafest. He is a regular at the Bluebird Café in Nashville and Eddie’s Attic in Decatur. He has performed on the syndicated radio programs, Mountain Stage and Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour. He has shared the stage with Morgan Wade, Paul Thorn, Steve Poltz, Dan Bern, Jerry Joseph, Glen Phillips (Toad The Wet Sprocket), Tommy Stinson, Shawn Mullins, John Fullbright, and more. American Songwriter wrote “Jack Barksdale has insights and awareness far beyond people twice his age, and he’s able to put them into songs that touch listeners.” NPR.org said “Jack Barksdale is special.” and Premier Guitar said “Barksdale’s talent is rare. He shines with earnest, unjaded passion on a foundation of will and an ability to connect.”Jack Barksdale is a folk/blues/americana singer/songwriter from Texas. Inspired by folk, rock, and blues legends, Jack started performing original music at the age of nine and has already shared the stage with Wynonna Judd, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Junior Brown, John Fullbright, and Hayes Carll.
