Singer/songwriter and leader of the original bluegrass and Americana band Chris Jones & The Night Drivers, based in both Canada and the U.S., recording for Mountain Home records. He and the band have scored 24 #1 songs on the bluegrass charts and have won 11 IBMA awards. Chris is a widely heard and award-winning SiriusXM program host.
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Bev Grant
Bev Grant is a labor and social activist, feminist, singer-songwriter, photographer and 2017 Joe Hill Award winner from the Labor Heritage Foundation for her work as a cultural worker as well as the 2017 winner of the ASCAP Foundation’s Jay Gorney award for her song We Were There. Former leader of the cutting edge 70s and 80s folk/rock & world music band, Human Condition, Bev is also founder and director of the Brooklyn Women’s Chorus.
Bev grew up singing and playing with her two older sisters in Portland, OR. After moving to New York City in the early 60s, she formed her band The Human Condition, who recorded their first album “Working People Gonna Rise,” with Paredon Records, now distributed by Smithsonian/Folkways. Her song “Inez” is included in the Smithsonian/Folkways “Best of Broadside” collection.
As cultural director of the UALE NE Union Women’s Summer School she developed and wrote the theme song for the multi-media women’s labor history show, called “We Were There!”, which she presents throughout the United States and which became global when she presented it in October 2017 in Costa Rica at the United Trade Union Confederation’s 3rd Women’s Conference.
Ron Olesko, WFDU folk DJ and columnist, featured Bev and her recently released CD “It’s Personal” in the May 20, 2017 issue of SingOut Magazine, saying…
”Over the past few decades, Bev and her songs have been part of many social struggles including the labor movement, so it came as somewhat of a surprise to discover that her new solo CD It’s Personal is an introspective and heart-felt collection of personal songs. However, closer examination reveals that the songs in this collection give an insight into what has motivated and shaped this extraordinary artist. It’s Personal features a diverse mix of folk, jazz and good old rock and roll to gives us a glimpse of the world that is fighting to make a better place for all.”
Full Review: https://singout.org/2017/03/20/bev-grant-gets-personal/
In July 1917, Bev begin scanning images from photo negatives she shot as a radical photo journalist in the late 1960s, including some iconic photos of the early radical Women’s Movement (The Miss America Beauty Pageant protest in 1968, and the W.I.T.C.H. Hex on Wall Street on Halloween in 1968), She’s exhibited at OSMOS Gallery in NYC, and received several favorable reviews in main stream media. In December 2021, OSMOS published a monograph of Bev’s photographs called: Bev Grant Photography: 1968-1972.
“What struck me so profoundly was the fact that Grant prefigured this whole notion of intersectionality.” Grant’s images, Gingeras said, “tell the story of this utopic moment before things got very divisive and polarized. And the echoes of the struggles she documented are still being heard right now.” The New Yorker Photo Booth 9/28/2018 https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/a-photographers-life-changing-encounter-with-political-struggle
Music website: www.bevgrant.com
Kim Harris
Heather Dale
Heather Dale’s original Celtic music explores world legends and history. She finds contemporary themes within old material, and fuses folk traditions with blues, jazz, and world music influences. Often compared to Loreena McKennitt and Sarah McLachlan, Dale’s rich vocals are paired with more than a dozen folk instruments in live performances with multi-instrumentalist Ben Deschamps. In her 25+ year career, she’s released 18 studio albums, 5 live albums, 3 songbooks and a full-length musical theatre work based on the King Arthur legend titled “Queens of Avalon.” She and Ben have played 1500+ shows across 3 continents, and together they run the musician-friendly OnlineConcertThing.com music platform. Heather & Ben have been proud Local 1000 members since 2011.
Kate Early
Daniel Boling
Balladeer / Songwriter based in Albuquerque, New Mexico and touring the U.S. and abroad full-time. In addition to being a touring solo artist, Daniel is a member of the 1960s folk trio The Limeliters and the group remains active. 2023 CD release on Berkalin Records — “New Old Friends” — a collaboration with Tom Paxton.
Former Western Regional Representative for Local 1000.
Tom Chapin
“One of the great personalities in contemporary folk music.” – New York Times
In a career that spans five decades, 26 albums and three Grammy awards, Tom Chapin has covered an incredible amount of creative ground. In addition to his work as a recording artist, concert performer, storyteller and activist, he’s acted on Broadway and worked extensively in television, radio and film.
Chapin maintains two long and productive parallel careers, both as a respected contemporary folk artist and as a pioneer in the field of children’s music. During the height of the Covid shutdowns, Tom and his daughters The Chapin Sisters streamed 200 live concerts under the moniker “Mornings with Papa Tom.” All are archived on YouTube.
Simon and Schuster has released three children’s books based upon his songs: This Pretty Planet, Library Song (The Library Book), and The Backwards Birthday Party. A new CD is almost complete, working title “Listen Close” to be released in Spring 2022.
In addition to his musical and media endeavors, Chapin has long been an advocate for environmental causes, issues of hunger and social justice, and a supporter of music and the arts in public schools.
Aaron Fowler
Aaron has been performing since he was 16. Working alongside several musicians throughout his career he has built a breadth of musical experiences from house concerts to festivals and concert halls. His passion for the music and the power it can have with groups of people is part of why he keeps bringing the music to audiences across the country. Aaron brings a polished fingerstyle and rhythm guitar playing to a warm tenor voice. His songwriting tells the stories of common folks bringing uncommon stories to life. Whether one of the more than 100 songs from rural communities across this country or songs of passion and purpose, Aaron delivers a performance that will move you. As an educator, Aaron began his teaching career in 1984 after he graduated from Friends University in Wichita, KS. Aaron intended to teach a couple of years at the elementary level then move to middle school and then high school and then land a career at the college. Well, part of that became a reality. Aaron taught 2 years at the elementary level and 2 years at the middle school level. The problem is that he stayed another 7 years, teaching middle school for 11 years! Some love middle school kids and Aaron is one of them. It was in 1995 when Aaron decided to pursue songwriting and touring more intentional. Now 32 years later he still loves working in the classroom drawing music and stories out of students. Aaron’s work includes work with the itty-bitty one, birth through 6-year-olds through Wolf Trap Early Learning Through the Arts. As a National Trainer, he loves getting these very young ones finding the music and rhythm inside themselves. Aaron is a Certified National Teaching Artist with Young Audiences in New York and a Wolf Trap Master Teaching Artist with Wolf Trap Early Learning through the Arts in Vienna Virginia. His current home in Wichita, Kansas keeps him connected with Arts Partners Wichita working with students K-12. The work of integrating the arts into science, math and language arts is a wonderful way to inspire kids to use the creative space in their heads to think about the world they live in. In early 2020 Aaron began thinking about how to leave some of the stories he was telling students about Bella and Choco, the two classroom therapy dogs that work with Aaron in the classroom. He came up with the concept of a children’s book about the two adventurous dogs that visited the classroom with him as Therapy dogs. The first book, Being YOU-Neek, was written during the 2020 Pandemic. It became the first book in the series The Adventures of Bella and Choco. This book helps children learn about character traits and a variety of academic lessons. The second book is entitled, The Boat, and is about how all us belong on this great plant we call Mother Earth. The 3rd book will come out in the spring of 2022 and is an Alphabet book highlighting local businesses in Wichita Kansas where Aaron and illustrator Peter Mader live.
Eric Erickson
Having grown up listening to Peter, Paul & Mary, The Beatles, Rogers & Hammerstein, James Taylor and their cohorts, Eric Erickson learned from masters about what makes a good song and a good performance. His approach was further enhanced by over 30 years of singing tenor in the a capella vocal ensemble, Woodstock Renaissance, who specialized in the music of The Renaissance and The Middle Ages. Elements of all of these have found their way into Eric’s original tunes, which can be found on his two full-length albums and a forthcoming EP which Eric is confident will be released “sometime during the current millennium.”
Eric was also the host of the long-running folk music program, “Jus’ Folks” on WDST in Woodstock NY, where he programmed the music of current and legacy folk music performers and hosted in-studio performances and interviews with some of the most iconic folk musicians, including Odesa, Richie Havens and Happy and Artie Traum.
Eric has shared the stage with, among others, Peter Yarrow, Pete Seeger, Cheryl Wheeler, Susan Werner, Noel Stookey, Tom Chapin and Livingston Taylor. He continues to roam the northeast with his acoustic guitar. The Huffington Post says, “Erickson plays a neat guitar (and) sings evocative… self-composed new tunes.”