Abigail Dowd’s living room series featuring Caroline Cotter
Caroline Cotter Caroline Cotter’s sunlit songs honor the countless ways of being human. With her honeyed voice and disarmingly honest lyrics, Cotter sings about connection, nostalgia, gratitude, loss and wanderlust. Lyrics like, “Find me somewhere out on the road / Take me into your heart and into your home,” make perfect sense from a touring artist who has played over 1000 shows in 46 states and 19 countries. She has performed at churches, art galleries, barns, yoga studios, punk bars, Parisian living rooms and even a schooner off the coast of Maine. Everywhere she goes, her oracular songs elicit emotion and spark insight—medicine for our collective longing. Abigail Dowd Our fearless host who still enjoys music most when it’s embedded in real life, sitting around a fire or every third Tuesday night at the Flat Iron. Each month Abigail invites musician friends to fall into space with her and the audience for what she describes as an evening in her adopted living room. They collaborate, share new songs, play old favorites, make things up, make you cry, make you laugh and most of all make you glad you came
Fancy Gap w/ Young Mister
Los Acoustic Guys
Being Followed, Dai Cheri, and Stepback Jumper
Ellis Bullard
In the wake of 2024’s Honky Tonk Ain’t Noise Pollution, Ellis Bullard has left no doubt that country music is still yearning for the true-blue honky-tonk experience he brings to the stage and studio. Listen to Bullard, and you’re listening to a life of barnstorming, hard living, and layers of musical influences. “I’m just a person, just a guy out there having a good time and trying to make sure other people are too,” Bullard says. “I give my time to people, and I think that means a lot to them. I’m genuinely trying to forge relationships and have meaningful interactions with all the fans I meet on the road.” After sharing the stage with Texas mainstays like Shinyribs, Reckless Kelly, Randy Rogers and Cody Jinks, Bullard has come into his own, and these days finds himself headlining clubs and dance halls from coast to coast. For his part, Bullard knows he’s on to something, and he’s enjoying the ride.
Official NCFF after party w/ Dance From Above featuring Marley Carroll
Official North Carolina Folk Festival after party with Dance From Above featuring Marley Carroll
TeleVolt w/ Le Smoking
Kieran Kane & Rayna Gellert
Kieran Kane’s seminal work in The O’Kanes and Kane Welch Kaplin, as well as co-founding the independent label Dead Reckoning Records, laid the foundation for the contemporary world of Americana music. A successful solo artist, collaborator, and songwriter (with songs recorded by Alan Jackson, John Prine, Emmylou Harris, and many more), Kieran is a musician’s musician: his playing is always understated, always groove-oriented, and always serving the song.If Rayna Gellert seems a preternaturally gifted songwriter, it’s because she’s seen farther into the old songs than most. Growing up in a musical family, she turned to Appalachian old-time music at a young age, becoming a prodigious fiddler and leading a new revival of American stringband music through her work with the acclaimed roots band Uncle Earl. An in-demand collaborator, she has toured and recorded with artists such as Scott Miller, Abigail Washburn, Joachim Cooder, and Robyn Hitchcock.Kieran and Rayna first met, fittingly, at San Francisco’s celebrated Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, which led to their cowriting songs for Kieran’s solo album Unguarded Moments. They joined forces again for Rayna’s 2017 release, Workin’s Too Hard (StorySound Records), which they also co-produced. Their first duo album, The Ledges, was released in February of 2018 on Dead Reckoning Records, followed up quickly by 2019’s When the Sun Goes Down.
John R. Miller w/ Lou Hazel
As John R. Miller began work on his fifth album, The Great Unknowing, he set out to challenge himself both creatively and geographically. Born in the Washington, DC area and raised in West Virginia, Miller has built a reputation as a thoughtful, boundary-pushing voice in alt-country and Americana, drawing from punk, traditional Appalachian music,and less conventional rock influences. For this record, he left his comfort zone behind and traveled to Tulsa to record at the legendary Church Studio, drawn by the city’s deep musical legacy and its ties to artists like J.J. Cale. Co-produced with longtime collaborator Adam Meisterhans, the album was tracked live with a band of Tulsa-based musicians, including Grammy-nominated John Fullbright, under the steady hand of veteran engineers Gary Laney and Mike Prado. The result is Miller’s most ambitious work to date — aspacious, textured collection that expands on the critically praised Depreciated and Heat Comes Down, blending road-worn storytelling, fuzzy atmospheres, and reflections onmovement, memory, and change. Rooted in his West Virginia past yet shaped by constant travel and new collaborations, The Great Unknowing captures an artist trusting the process, embracing risk, and letting the groove lead the way.
Ajeva
Ajeva (uh-jay-vuh) is multi-genre band from St Petersburg FL rooted in experimental rock, jamtronica, and funk with an emphasis on improvisation. They’ve shared the stage with heavy hitters like Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, Spafford, The Motet, Keller Williams, The Disco Biscuits, and The Main Squeeze, while also earning repeat appearances at Suwannee Hulaween and other major festivals across the country.