"Americana Queen" (Vice Noisey) Mary Bragg, heralded by Rolling Stone and NPR for her “gorgeously crafted and executed songs,” just released her self-titled album, which No Depression hails as a “personal and powerful set featuring a courageous plumb line.” 

Originally from Swainsboro, Georgia, the singer-songwriter-producer has produced albums for Grace Pettis, Natalie Price, Jackson Emmer, and Alicia Stockman, among others, in addition to her own recent effort. 

Praised by World Café for her “refined, sumptuously melancholy take on Southern storytelling,” Bragg’s been exploring love and its complications for much of her career now, wrestling with longing, desire, heartbreak, and insecurity across a string of widely lauded albums. NPR dubbed her breakout 2017 release, Lucky Strike, one of the year’s best, while her 2019 follow-up, Violets as Camouflage, earned similar raves, with the Nashville Scene calling it “magnificent” and Rolling Stone hailing its mix of “classic country twang and “gentle chamber-pop.” Bragg toured the records extensively, playing headline and festival dates to ever-growing audiences across the US and Europe.

Having just completed her Master of Arts in Songwriting and Production at the Berklee College of Music in New York, NY, at the iconic Power Station Studios, Bragg is now the newest adjunct faculty member at BerkleeNYC, teaching The Craft of Songwriting. 

At age 44, Wes Collins and his wife Anita made a pact to become writers: she started writing fiction and Wes penned his first song. A few years later, they were both multi-award-winners in their fields. Collins more than makes up for lost time with songs that dig deep and go to uncertain, sometimes scary places. Come for a haunting melody and some intricate fingerpicking and stay for the wit and deep literary intelligence. There is always more to find in a Wes Collins song.

Wes has played shows from coast to coast including: The Blue Bird Cafe in Nashville, TN; The Kerrville Folk Festival in Kerrville, TX; the Cary Theater in Cary, NC (opening for Dave Olney); and many more. He is a winner of the prestigious Grassy Hills New Folk Competition and a North Carolina Arts Council Songwriting Fellowship, and has been featured as a finalist in The Telluride Troubadour Contest in Telluride, CO; The Songwriter's Serenade Competition in Moravia, TX; and The Wildflower Performing Songwriter Contest in Dallas, TX.

Wes's recorded his third album Jabberwockies at Chris Rosser's Hollow Reed Arts Studio in Asheville, North Carolina, with special contributions by Ordinary Elephant and Jaimee Harris. Advance reviews for Jabberwockies are very positive and the album looks poised to surpass the success of his popular second album Welcome to the Ether.

Country troubadour John Louis wanders around this Twin Town of music, writing and singing heartworn country folk songs. 

John’s that guy on the bus who sits quietly, looking tired like the rest of us. The difference is he is sitting there composing a song about your life and those painful poignant moments you dust off on the way home between life’s chores. His songs show us our lives and the subtle but important things that become universally important hallmarks of our Midwestern journey. 

Like church basement rolls at the funeral. Like the small moments on road trips filled with meaning, loss and memory. The tragedies and triumphs that break us and keep us going one more day. 

John glimpses it all through a poet’s heart. When he stands bravely on a stage with a guitar and begins singing, we get to see it too. And it makes sense for a moment. 

The songs John writes keep winning awards from prestigious songwriting showcases. Including the Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk competition, Rocky Mountain Folks Festival Songwriter Showcase, and the Great River Folk Fest songwriter contest. (That’s some hot sh-t folks!) 

I dare you to listen to his music and not feel like the first human who rode on the tilt-a-whirl. 

The thing is, this country folk music he makes has emerged from walking the path to wisdom. This is a path most American men run from. Because it’s a painful and sad road. But it is a sadness tinged with meaning and some joy at the thought that we get to experience any of it. 

His telling of the journey is thrilling, emotional and truth filled. 

John Louis songs will bind us all together in a concert that will have us laughing, weeping openly and connecting with one another as people on the same path to the destination.  He knows that in fact no one here facing this life-sentence of life for an indeterminate length of time had much choice and the few choices we did have were blown somehow. But god how sweetly we love it. His songs are the consolation prize for all of us losers as we get up and stare out the window and are gripped with a love of this precious life and a woe that resides at the edges of this brief journey through.