_ …are a dynamic, original, authentic bluegrass and folk quintet from Burlington, Vermont. Originally formed in 2004, the band has evolved to combine award-winning, evocative songwriting and singing with top-notch bluegrass instrumentation. On the stage, PossumHaw offers a genuine, energetic, and highly entertaining performance without gimmickry.

The band is:

Colby Crehan: lead vocals, guitar, piano
Stephen Waud: mandolin, vocals
Ryan Crehan: banjo, vocals, harmonica
Charley Eiseman: lead guitar, vocals
Pat Melvin: upright bass, vocals

PossumHaw has produced three full-length albums: Fortune's Name (2010), Madtom (2007) and Split-rail (2005). The band has appeared at the Champlain Valley Folk Festival, First Night Burlington, Higher Ground, the Long Trail Festival, and at venues around Vermont and Massachusetts

www.possumhaw.net

_  …have been delighting folk audiences with their interesting repertoire and their beautiful and intricate harmonies since they joined forces in 2006.  However, their musical beginnings go all the way back to the Boston-Cambridge folk scene of the '60's where they both performed in the famous coffeehouses on Charles Street as well as around the Greater Boston area.  Renee Goodwin began performing with Bill Staines in the duo Bill and Renee before Bill went solo and started his long and successful career.  Bob Simons started as a solo act and through the years has worked in groups of 2, 3, and 4 before settling in with Renee as Simons and Goodwin

Renee may be heard on the album "Bag of Rainbows" with Bill Staines while Bob has recorded the album "Bumpper Croppe" with Jim King and "Thin Ice" with Frosty Morn'.  Together, Simons and Goodwin have recorded the CD's "Rough Cuts", "Come on Home" and "Buttermilk Hill" and are currently working on a fourth recording project.

www.simonsandgoodwin.com

 

_  Crafting delicately arranged folk-pop that drips with bittersweet melodies, soaring harmonies, and an awful lot of passion, The Olympic Symphonium have been sharing their quiet world with us since 2005. They are and always have been a collaborative effort between three multi-instrumentalists, songwriters, and friends: Nick Cobham, Kyle Cunjak, and Graeme Walker.

After piecing together each of their first two albums from sporadic recording sessions stretched out over many months, The Olympic Symphonium have opted this time for a change of pace. A much quicker pace.

The band locked themselves away in a large, empty, secret location in Fredericton, free of distractions, with longtime engineer Brad Perry and gave themselves a week to record an album. With the clock ticking away, the band went to work.

Sketches of songs were prepared beforehand and then developed in the studio with all members being on hand at all times; a new experience for the Olympic Symphonium and one they feel has created a cohesive feeling for their third full length album.

www.theolympicsymphonium.com

_…has been playing music for over 40 years. In his early teens, he began listening to Old Time Music. He learned to play fiddle tunes on the guitar in the styles of Doc Watson and Norman Blake. At the same time, Mark was listening to the “blues masters” – incorporating their sound and feel into his guitar playing. In the late 1980s, Mark started his own Chicago style Blues band and played extensively throughout New England for over a dozen years.

In 2000, Mark gravitated back to his acoustic roots playing solo blues, opening and playing on the bill with such names as; Johnny Winter, James Cotton, Coco Montoya, Robert Cray and many others. Mark’s live performances include many great traditional Delta Blues numbers with a Chicago Blues slant that transforms each tune into a tour de force. Included are the blazing flat-picking techniques that grabbed audiences in Mark’s Bluegrass days; the hot slide guitar playing that creates a mood and timbre change in each set; and the showmanship that he has developed from 25 years of experience as a band front man.

www.marktsmall.com

__

_ ...had one of her first public shows at a small coffee shop in Northampton Massachusetts in September of 2009. She was so nervous and timid that she had to be prodded onto the stage. In July of 2011 she walked out onto the stage at the Calvin Theater in front of 1,500 fans of the Grammy Award winning artist Jonny Lang, and brought them to their feet in applause. Jonny immediately asked her to open three more shows and called her “an extremely talented songwriter and incredibly great singer.” Heather has fallen in love with performing, having played over 225 shows in 20 states in 20 months, sharing the stage with such celebrated acts as Jonny Lang, Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriquez, Mike & Ruthy, Vance Gilbert, Dala, David Wax Museum, Devil Makes Three, Caravan of Thieves, Jeffrey Gaines, Jill Sobule, Meg Hutchinson, Cliff Eberhardt and many others.

Bob Dylan wrote in his autobiography that when he was pounding it out in the "pass the can" clubs of NYC, he knew that he would make it because he was different; he had something to say, he was presenting a message, when everybody else around was singing the same song, presenting themselves. The consistent feedback from those who have seen Heather perform is this: she has a message, an intention and the chops to back it up.

www.heathermaloney.com

_ …formed in early 2007 when five high school friends, four of which were previously active in the Boston folk scene, got together to arrange some of their favorite traditional tunes and songs to perform at open mics and Battle of the Band competitions in the Boston area. Incorporating music from the American, Scottish, Irish, and Cape Breton traditions with modern techniques and improvisation have set the Bridgebuilders apart from other Boston folk bands, not surprisingly leading to their eviction from the Boston folk scene.

www.facebook.com/thebridgebuilders


_

_  _…are Chris Reckling (guitar) and J. Johnson (mandolin). Together, they explore the roots of bluegrass, fiddle tunes, swing, and folk music on guitar and mandolin. The Splinters perform at coffeehouses, festivals, and open mikes in the greater Boston area. Their influences include Doc Watson, Norman Blake, Tony Rice, David Grisman, OCMS, Gillian Welch, Bill Frisell, Duke Ellington, Chris Thile, Frank Zappa, and many others.J and Chris met at Berklee College of Music and have been friends ever since. Find out more at...

www. splintersmusic.com

_
Ethan Robbins is a musician whose compositions connect the roots of bluegrass with the backbeat of contemporary funk.  Ethan began playing bluegrass at Oberlin College where he met Cold Chocolate upright bassist Kirsten Lamb.   The two began evolving a style of music never quite nailed down by a single genre.  The songs indicated that Straight-Driving-Bluegrass and All-Out-Funk were to be genres fused from the get go.  Simply put, Bluegrass Funk.

Then, after moving to Boston, Ethan and Kirsten met banjo virtuoso and MIT physicist James W. McIver.  James quickly earned the nickname James “Brown” McIver, bringing this funk sound to the most basic of bluegrass instruments.  With the addition of professional drummer Ariel Bernstein, the arrangements started to become more involved as the songs continued to bring that funk groove to bluegrass music. 

Currently based in Boston, Ethan Robbins & Cold Chocolate has gained a reputation for creating intricate, exciting music that gets the crowd on their feet.  Their music generates a powerful and unique acoustic sound with original songs that are both catchy and poignant. 

www.coldchocolatemusic.com

_ Critically acclaimed Boston performing songwriter Thea Hopkins calls her music American Short Story Folk: concise, striking narratives, they tell of American romance and tragedy in modern terms. In 2004, folk icons Peter, Paul & Mary recorded one of her songs, "Jesus Is On The Wire"on their album “In These Times,” and described the song as a "compelling composition with a riveting story-telling style. This is one of the most important songs we have sung in recent years."  Thea's composition is the only new song to be performed in its entirety in P,P & M's most recent PBS-TV special, the career retrospective "Carry It On." It is considered one of their later signature songs, and is included on the new 2010 Peter, Paul & Mary CD, "The Prague Sessions", which is dedicated to the memory of Mary Travers.

Her most recent CD, “Chickasaw,” contains the instrumental work of pianist Tim Ray (Lyle Lovett, Jane Siberry), guitarist David Goodrich (Chris Smither, Peter Mulvey), bassist Richard Gates (Suzanne Vega, Patty Larkin), cellist Natalie Haas (Alasdair Fraser, Mark O’Connor), and guitarists Bob Metzger (Leonard Cohen) and Steve Sadler (Kerri Powers, The Swinging Steaks). Drummer Kathi Taylor, fiddler Ian Kennedy, and harmony vocalist Chris Thompson complete the extraordinary sound. The album was engineered by Gerry Bellegarde and Larry Luddecke, mixed by Chris Rivaland mastered by Ian Kennedy. Among the 12 songs are two of a political nature, a new version of the Matthew Shepard story-song, "Jesus Is On the Wire," and the anti-war “River of Fire.”

In February of 2005, the nationally syndicated radio program "Acoustic Café" selected Thea's music for their monthly feature devoted to a new artist, "One To Watch." In 2004 in the Washington Post, Richard Harrington wrote that P, P & M’s album "In These Times" showcases "several promising new writers. The standout here is Thea Hopkins." Thea Hopkins' debut album, "Birds of Mystery," was named one of the Top Ten local albums of the year by the Boston Herald. "A gorgeous dusky voice wraps itself like mist around country-folk songs of tenderness and substance,"wrote Herald staff-writer Sarah Rodman.

Thea's songwriting awards include ASCAP PLUS awards, the Boston Folk Festival and the International Songwriting Contest. She has opened for Richie Havens, Maura O'Connell, John Hammond, Ellis Paul, Susan Werner, Connie Kaldor, Tracy Grammer, Brooks Williams, The Burns Sisters,  and Katy Moffatt. She has performed at Club Passim, Johnny D's, Natick Center for the Arts, Fall River's Narrows Center for the Arts, Cafe Fantastique, Vermont's Middle Earth Music Hall, Tupelo Music Hall, the Uncommon Ground in Chicago, the Sundance Film Festival, The Coffee Gallery in the L.A. area, and in New York City at CB's Gallery,Cornelia Street, the Postcrypt Coffeehouse and The Bitter End. She's received airplay on WUMB-FM,WERS-FM,WKZE-FM and WFUV-FM, among other non-commercial radio stations, here and overseas.

Thea comes from a mixed-ethnic heritage, with significant Native-American ancestry from both sides of her family. She is a member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah.   Her mother grew up on Martha's Vineyard, in the rural Gay Head area that is now the Wampanoag tribal land known as Aquinnah. Her uncle Donald was, for 52 years, the chief of the Vineyard's Wampanoag Indian tribe. Her cousin Ryan Malonson, succeeded his father as chief of the tribe. Thea's song "Just a Soul," from Birds of Mystery, was dedicated to Thea's late aunt Patsy.  Thea's father is African-American and Cherokee.
www.theahopkins.com


_

_ …brings to the 21st century the passion and perception of the great 20th century folk singers like Woody Guthrie and early Bob Dylan...As a singer, he brings a memorable style, certainly unique for today and tomorrow but keeping faith with the sound and sensibility of yesterday.” —Nick Noble, Host–THE FOLK REVIVAL WICN (Worcester, MA)

Doug's upcoming cd (due spring 2012) features guest performances by Marc Ribot (Tom Waits, Ray Lamontagne, John Mellencamp, Robert Plant) Rami Jaffee (Foo Fighters, Wallflowers), Mark Spencer (Son Volt), songwriter Tim Easton and songwriter James Maddock (Wood).

Doug Kwartler's songs have been prominently featured on three major television networks including the top CBS soap opera, "The Young and the Restless," the TNT drama "Dark Blue," the ABC soap opera "All My Children" and independent film.

www.dougmusic.com



 

_ ...began in 2001 as three musicians in a
living room working on roots Americana original songs.  As time passed
and material was created, the band has had a revolving door of local
talent working in and around it for over ten years.  The band's
versatility is its strength spanning the genre's of blues, folk,
country, and rock.

The Willows have been a staple on the North Shore MA,
as well as in and around Boston since it's first CD came out in 2006.
The Willows have three albums available since that time, and a new one coming out
in 2012.  The Willows moves along into the future now with no signs of
the music stopping.  The Willows is very proud to participate and
support the North Shore Folk Festival again this year!

www.facebook.com/pages/The-Willows

_Submissions for sponsors, performers and vendors begin in Sept/Oct. Please email northshorefolkfestival@gmail.com for sponsorship, booking, and vendor information.