Rupert Wates was born in London and studied at Oxford University. He has been a full time songwriter since the late 1990s, when he signed a publishing contract with Eaton Music Limited. In London he worked with some of the best performers in the city. Moving in 2001 to Paris, Wates formed his own quartet and began playing live regularly. In fall 2006 he came to the US. He is now based in New York City and Colorado. Since coming to the US, he has won more than 40 songwriting and performing awards (www.rupertwatesmusic.com/awards).

His music is an eclectic mix of acoustic, melodic art/folk, with flavors of jazz, vaudeville and cabaret. He has released nine solo CDs. They have received outstanding reviews in the international online press and tracks from them have been played on radio all over the world. In addition, Wates' songs have been covered by other artists in the UK, Canada and the US. Two full length tribute CDs to his material have been recorded: 'Crazy Puzzle' (2015) by Nashville-based performer Roxie Rogers, and 'Wide Open Heart' (July 2017) by Los Angeles vocalist Susan Kohler. Both these CDs were initiated and funded entirely by the artists themselves, and comprise exclusively songs taken from Rupert Wates' back catalog. Over 20 recordings featuring Wates' songs by other artists were made in 2016, and more are scheduled for 2017 (full list at www.rupertwatesmusic.com/covers).

In 2010 Wates released Joe's Café, an album of 15 original songs based on true stories, each interpreted by a different vocalist, retelling the stories of ordinary American people. Through them we trace the story of America itself: through two world wars, the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, Vietnam and the struggle for Civil Rights, all the way to the present day. Recorded live in the studio in a single weekend, the album's warm sound evokes the welcoming atmosphere of an all-night café, where friends gather to share their stories. Featured virtuoso musicians on the recording include Darol Anger on violin and Michael Manring on bass.

Joe's Café has been presented very successfully at Festivals throughout North America, and in other venues in New York City and in the southeastern United States. The show won Best Music Revue in the 2010 San Francisco Fringe Festival. More information about Joe's Café is at www.bitemusiclimited.com.

In 2014, Wates joined forces with Toronto-based virtuoso pianist Bartosz Hadala to form a piano/guitar duo called The Nightwatchers (www.thenightwatchers.com). The duo tour Canada and Europe regularly. In March 2015 they recorded and released a debut CD entitled The Nightwatchers, featuring some of the standout songs of Wates' extensive catalog.

Rupert Wates averages 120 live shows every year, in front of audiences totaling more than 3,500, in acoustic venues in every state in America, in Canada and in Europe. He performs sometimes alone, sometimes with his trio or his quartet. He prefers smaller listening rooms where the audience is up close and the emphasis is on the music. He was voted an Artist Of The Year in both 2013 and 2016 by the international house concert network Concerts In Your Home (www.concertsinyourhome.com), and for five years running he has been the most booked performer on their database of several hundred artists. In 2018, Wates was a Finalist in the Kerrville New Folk Song Contest, and an Emerging Artist at Falconridge Folk Festival.

Despite Wates' British background, and underpinning the universality of his music's appeal, Folk And Acoustic Music Exchange has called him "a prime figure in American music" (www.acousticmusic.com). and goes on: "This is one gifted sonofabitch... If you're not hip to this guy yet you're missing out."

Audiences everywhere respond to Wates' brand of melodic art/folk-haunting songs that ring true.

Discography:
Full Circle (2019),
The Lights Of Paris (2017),
Colorado Mornings (2016),
The Nightwatchers (2015),
The Rank Outsiders Ball (2014),
At the Losers' Motel (2012),
Joe's Café (2010),
Dear Life (2008),
Coast to Coast (2007)
and Sweet or Bitter Wine (2005).

Carol is offering two Mountain Dulcimer Workshops (morning and afternoon), followed by a concert performance in the evening. Please contact Dave or Margaret for workshop details.

Carol Walker's formal training includes a degree in Music Education, with majors in piano, harp, and voice. For 32 years Carol was a high school choral teacher in northern NJ, with an active and successful program. In 2003 she was honored to receive the NJ Governor's Teacher of the Year Award, and in 2008 retired after deciding it was time to let someone else have all the fun!

She branched out from her formal classical training after purchasing her first mountain dulcimer in 1999, and a folk harp in 2001. It wasn't long before she found a way to combine her love of teaching with her new direction in folk music, and has been a popular workshop leader at festivals across the United States.

In 2014 she ventured for the first time to the famous Winfield Dulcimer Championship where her performance placed her as one of the Top Five Finalists. A second trip in 2016 resulted in another placement in the Top Five.

Carol has made two trips to the Isle of Man where she has done extensive research into traditional Manx music, producing two books of arrangements for mountain dulcimer (Tailless Tunes and Tailless Tunes 2) and a CD (Alas! The Horse is Gone), all exclusively devoted to this delightful Celtic-flavored music.

Carol has also written three other instructional dulcimer books (DNA* Dulcimer Ditties), each with accompanying CDs.

In 2015, Carol released her first instructional DVD (Exploring the Beauty of the Appalachian Dulcimer), produced by Happy Traum of Homespun Tapes.

Her long-awaited book of classical melodies appeared in 2017: Classical Dulcimer - Cwassical Favowites awwanged by Cawol Walker.

Since 2002 Carol has been performing with Wayfarers & Company, a Pennsylvania-based eclectic, old-time gospel folk group for which she adds vocals and also plays dulcimer, upright bass, piano, melodica, and harp.

Carol has taught and performed music of many genres for many years. She took up the mountain dulcimer and folk music in 1999. She has been a featured performer and a workshop leader at numerous dulcimer festivals. She offers private individual instruction in person at her New Jersey home studio and via Skype.

Out of the heartland of America, stomping grounds of Truman and Twain, "powerhouse" troubadour Dana Cooper dedicated himself to a life of music over 40 years ago. This song poet engages and inspires audiences around the world with his quick wit, insightful stories and commanding presence. He is the recipient of the 2014 Heritage Musician award from Pilgrim Center for the Arts in Kansas City, MO. He was also named the 2015 Spirit of Folk award winner by Folk Alliance International. He has performed on Austin City Limits, Mountain Stage and the Kerrville Folk Festival where he was nominated for their Hall of Fame. Cooper's songs have been recorded by top-notch artists such as bluegrass star Claire Lynch; Irish vocalist Maura O’Connell; and luminary songwriters Pierce Pettis and Susan Werner. Cooper’s mixture of flat-picking, finger-picking and percussive strumming style is legend among other guitarists. An expressive singer his voice is ageless evoking a rich lifetime of experience.

At 12 he sang, played drums, guitar and harmonica in local bands. By 13 he began writing his own songs and at 16 he performed regularly at the prestigious Vanguard Coffeehouse in Kansas City. His deep love and commitment to a life of music drew Cooper away from an art scholarship. Cooper took to the road touring midwest college coffeehouses for one year then sold an electric guitar and his entire record collection to buy a one-way ticket to Los Angeles. Four months later he was signed to Elektra Records where his eponymous first album was released in 1973. The record features such acclaimed players as Leland Sklar, Russ Kunkel and Jim Horn. Years later he returned to San Francisco City College to study another great love, horticulture. Still he played whenever possible in clubs all over the Bay Area. Cooper’s diverse experiences as a taxi driver, warehouseman, nurse’s aid, gardener, waiter and touring musician continued to bring maturity and depth to his songwriting.

Cooper eventually moved to Texas writing, performing and recording with Shake Russell in the late 70s and with his own power trio, DC3 during the early 80s. Returning to his roots as a solo performer Cooper relocated to Nashville in 1988. He has become an integral figure in the Music City songwriting community collaborating with renowned writers such as Tom Kimmel, Sally Barris, Kim Carnes and Don Henry. Cooper has been invited to participate in songwriting workshops from Belfast to Copenhagen to Austin.

His prolific endeavors have resulted in 28 albums. The critically acclaimed Miracle Mile on Compass Records was nominated for a Nashville Music Award as “Best Pop Album” and was chosen by Performing Songwriter magazine as one of the top DIY recordings for the year. Harry Truman Built a Road was named one of the best records of 2002 by The Tennessean and was also chosen as one of the top twelve DIY recordings for that year. Made of Mud released on King Easy Records in 2005 won Cooper the “Best Male Songwriter Award” by Indie Acoustic Project. Working with co-producer/guitarist Thomm Jutz, Cooper released his 27th album, Building a Human Being, in September, 2015.

Cooper and Jutz also coproduced his 28th recording, Incendiary Kid, which will be released October 20, 2017 on Travianna Records. Americana and Folk radio stations across the country are now playing the new CD in anticipation of its release.

Robert K. Oermann in Music Row Magazine says of Building a Human Being "Nashville veteran Cooper wins the Disc of the Day prize. Highly recommended."

Fellow singer songwriter Buzz Holland says "Cooper is a person who can sing like an angel and play like the devil."

Legendary Texas singer songwriter Eric Taylor said of Cooper’s performance at Kerrville Fall Festival 2015 “Dana Cooper gave the best solo performance I’ve seen and heard for many years. Could be the best I’ve ever.”

Bill Staines was our first house concert performer, in March of 2019. Over 50 guests attended that concert, and we had to turn folks away for lack of sufficient seating in our living room. He'll be joining us again. Reserve early to guarantee seating this time!

Composer David Amram once described Bill Staines as "a modern day Stephen Foster. His music will be around a hundred years from now."

Staines has over two dozen published recordings, and has written over three hundred songs, many of which have been recorded by the likes of Peter, Paul, and Mary, Tommy Makem and the Clancy brothers, Nanci Griffith, Glen Yarborough, and Jerry Jeff Walker. His music is sung at campfires and folk music gatherings, in homes and churches, all around the country. He's a New Englander who dreams of open plains and vast, Western skies, and damn his soul, he writes better cowboy songs than anybody in the Southwest. -The Houston Post

"I am well aware of how easy it could be to get involved with simple semantics by saying that all music is music of the people, and therefore folk music, but many of the songs being written today are, rather than songs of the people, songs of the individual performer. They do not have the depth or the universality to make their way in the world much beyond the writer."
-Bill Staines, The Tour

YAMPA VALLEY STEVE, the Cowboy Irish Tenor, or just Steve Jones, is beginning his third year as a solo artist. He brings enthusiasm and energy to the stage with an audience friendly show. He performs cowboy/western, folk, classic country and Irish cover, traditional and original songs.

He has performed at the prestigious 3 Forks Ranch, which straddles the Colorado/Wyoming border in the beautiful Little Snake River valley. He has appeared solo at the Arizona Folklore Preserve, Cochise and Durango Gatherings, Steamboat Pro Rodeo series, county fairs and many other public and private events. As a member of the Yampa Valley Boys, he has also performed at the the Cochise, Durango, Encampment, Nebraska (Valentine, NE) and Colorado Cowboy Gatherings. During the winter, he is most often found at the Bar Lazy L Family Ranch sleigh ride venue.