2011 Performers

Loudon Wainwright III

I started playing the guitar around 1960 and after seeing Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival in 1962 I acquired a brand new musical role model. I was unhappy at St. Andrews, but thank God for teenage rebellion - it can get you through. I graduated in 1965, went on to drama school at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh,10 dropped out in 1967 and headed west to San Francisco where all the other long-haired lemmings were bound at that time.

I suppose if you were writing my obituary today you'd refer to 1972's "Dead Skunk" (#1 in Little Rock Arkansas for six weeks) and my 3 appearances on the M*A*S*H TV show in 1975 as Capt. Calvin Spaulding, the singing surgeon.

Opening for Loudon Wainwright...

Trina Hamlin combines gentle understanding with raw emotion in a way that is, quite simply, captivating from the first note.
With a rich, powerful voice, Hamlin reveals a rare confluence of Midwestern innocence, contemplative focus, and raw passion while adding a disarmingly sharp wit in her stage banter. She seamlessly moves from guitar to piano with self accompaniment on harmonica leaving many who have seen her wondering what she can't do.
Regarded as one of the best harmonica players around, she presents a driving, sensuous rhythm in her performance reawakening audiences to the art of the instrument.

Over the course of her colorful career, singer songwriter Susan Werner has cultivated a reputation as a daring and innovative songwriter with a killer live show. She boldly endeavors to weave old with new to create altogether new genres of music when existing ones do not suit her muse, and she regularly keeps audiences guessing and laughing simultaneously. Most of her work infuses traditional music styles and methods with her unmistakable contemporary worldview, constantly challenging listeners to experience music from a fresh and unexpected perspective. Susan Werner’s new release Classics asks no less of her distinguished audience or herself.

Bryan Bowers

From his rather unglamorous beginning as a street singer, Bryan Bowers has become a major artist on the traditional music circuit. He has redefined the autoharp and is also well known as a singer-songwriter. Bryan has a dynamic outgoing personality and an uncanny ability to enchant a crowd in practically any situation. His towering six foot four inch frame can be wild and zany on stage while playing a song like `Dixie' and five minutes later he can have the same audience singing `Will The Circle Be Unbroken' in quiet reverence and delight.
For nearly three decades, Bryan Bowers has been to the autoharp what Earl Scruggs was to the five-string banjo. He presents instrumental virtuosity combined with warmth, eloquence, expression and professionalism.

Two Many Banjos

Two Many Banjos continue to push the folk/bluegrass boundaries to their limits.  Their music can be thoughtful, lusty, lyrical, or rollicking—sometimes all in the same song!  From Duluth MN we welcome front man and head writer Marc Gartman on banjo, bouzouki, and vocals; fellow instigator Dave Carroll (of Trampled By Turtles fame) on banjo and vocals; Matt Mobley on upright bass, and Bryan "Lefty" Johnson, percussion and vocals.

Cafe Accordion Orchestra

Drawing from a multitude of influences ranging from elegant classical and jazz styles to the rawest, most basic blues, country and soul, Radoslav Lorkovic has taken on an unusually broad musical spectrum and refined it into his distinctive piano stlye. His tenure on the R&B and folk circuits has culminated in five critically acclaimed solo recordings and numerous appearances on the recordings of and performances with artists including Odetta, Jimmy LaFave, Ribbon of Highway Woody Guthrie Tribute, Greg Brown, Richard Shindell, Ellis Paul, Dave Moore, Andy White and Bo Ramsey. His twenty year touring career has led him from the taverns of the upper Mississippi River to the castles of Italy, The Canary Islands, The Yup'ik villages of Alaska and Carnegie Hall.