Berklee College of Music is a presence every year at FreshGrass, with students and faculty in its American Roots Music Program on stage, giving workshops, popping up in the galleries, and generally running wild all over the museum. The artistic validity of a wide range of American roots styles — including blues, gospel, folk, early … Continued
Come on out, as we honor the godmother of rock ‘n’ roll, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, with the help of guitarist extraordinaire Felicia Collins — best known as the guitarist and vocalist for the Late Show with David Letterman. It’s a uniquely FreshGrass moment and always a highlight of the weekend.
North Adams native CJ Field wasn’t born with a guitar in his hand — but he could have been. Field carved out a place for himself on the Nashville scene as a frontman of the edgy rock-and-roots collaborative Delta Riot and as a chart-topping songwriter. He’s back in his hometown for a set of spirited, … Continued
Willi Carlisle is a poet and a folk singer for the people, but his extraordinary gift for turning a phrase isn’t about high falutin’ pontificatin’; it’s about looking out for one another and connecting through our shared human condition. Born and raised on the Midwestern plains, Carlisle is a product of the punk to folk music … Continued
With talents on loan from Punch Brothers, Crooked Still, and the acoustic music world at large, the four piece Hawktail is made up of fiddler Brittany Haas, bassist Paul Kowert, guitarist Jordan Tice, and mandolinist Dominick Leslie. From winding melodies and sparse vigils to feisty barnburners, this quartet shines on stage with a grace and … Continued
Three generations of some of the sharpest minds in the American string band universe come together for Darol Anger & Mr. Sun Legendary fiddler, Darol Anger, is at home in countless musical genres — some of which he helped to pioneer — and is a member of the original “nuclear” generation of pickers who extended … Continued
“One of Americana’s great up-and-coming secrets” (Rolling Stone), we first met Chattanooga-bred Amythyst Kiah as part of Our Native Daughters. The all-women-of-color supergroup — Kiah, Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell — earned a Grammy nomination for the Kiah-penned standout “Black Myself” and won Song of the Year at the 2019 Folk Alliance International … Continued
In the summer of 1978, Alison Brown took first prize at the Canadian National Banjo Championship. When Alison Krauss asked her to join Union Station in the late 1980s, Brown already had an illustrious decade of solo performing behind her. Alison Brown and her label, Compass Records, are great partners of FreshGrass and have been … Continued
Bonny Light Horseman — the Fruit Bats’ Eric D. Johnson, veteran multi-instrumentalist Josh Kaufman (The National, Josh Ritter), and Anaïs Mitchell, writer of the Tony award-winning Broadway musical, Hadestown — repaints centuries old folk ballads for our disconcerting present. Quietly charming us all last year with their eponymously titled debut album the folk supergroup earned … Continued
From early gigs at local pizza shops to world tours with Nickle Creek, brother-sister duo Sean and Sara Watkins grew up playing music side by side — and thankfully, somethings never change. Watkins Family Hour serves up down-home familial folk, blending intricate guitar picking, elegant fiddle, with the siblings’ honeyed voices into musical magic that’ll … Continued
