Albert Lee

Albert Lee

rockabilly
Malibu, California

Albert Lee’s is a unique story—British by birth and upbringing, he gained acclaim in the 1960s as one of the UK’s top R&B players, and since the 1970s has been recognized as one of the top rockabilly guitarists in the world. In England, Albert Lee is a household name, and in Nashville and Los Angeles, he’s long been one of the most in-demand session guitarists. Nicknamed “Mr. Telecaster,” he is a musician’s musician, noted for his fingerstyle and hybrid picking technique, his lightning speed, and his melodic sensibilities. Vince Gill described him as “One of the finest guitar players who ever walked this earth ….”

Bombino

Bombino

Tuareg guitar
Agadez, Niger

Tuareg guitar has exploded across the international cultural landscape in the two decades since the pyrotechnics of these guitar slingers, often veterans from the front lines of the Tuareg’s intermittent uprisings, first captured the imagination of music fans worldwide. Proclaimed variously as “the Sultan of Shred” (New York Times), the “World’s Best Guitarist” (Noisey), and “utterly, utterly fantastic” (BBC World Service), the Niger-born guitarist Bombino is arguably the leading exponent of this rhythmic, trance-like, and sonically captivating sound. Bombino was a crowd favorite at the 2019 Richmond Folk Festival, and is returning to celebrate the festival’s 20th anniversary.

Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino

Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino

Southern Italian pizzica tarantata
Salento, Italy

In southern Italy, the region of Salento has a distinctive music called pizzica tarantata, which accompanies the trance-like dance associated with tarantism, the belief in ritual possession arising from the bite of a local spider. This music nearly vanished before becoming the most prominent symbol of a regional resurgence, a revival led by Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino (CGS). Started in 1975 by the musical scholar and activist Rina Durante, along with her cousin, Daniele Durante, this seven-member ensemble from the Salento peninsula of Apulia— “the heel of the boot” of Italy—is now led by Daniele’s son, Mauro, and is the biggest star of Italian traditional music. Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino made their Richmond Folk Festival debut in 2016 and are among the favorites returning to celebrate the festival’s 20th anniversary.

Cora Harvey Armstrong

Cora Harvey Armstrong

gospel
Richmond, Virginia

Gospel artist Cora Harvey Armstrong hasn’t always lived the life she sings about. While she’s been singing and playing piano in churches on Sundays for most of her life, she spent decades drinking, partying, and living a “hellacious life” the other six days a week. Health problems and an abusive relationship compounded her struggle. When her father passed away in 1999, Armstrong rededicated herself to her faith and her music, and has started to earn the recognition that her talent as a singer, songwriter, and pianist deserves. As Richmond-born musician and producer Bill McGee says, she is “Aretha Franklin on piano, Mahalia Jackson with her voice, and Shirley Caesar with her style.” Armstrong has graced Richmond Folk Festival stages a few times over the event’s two decades; it is no surprise this local favorite is returning to celebrate the festival’s 20th anniversary.

Eddie Cotton Jr.

Eddie Cotton Jr.

soul blues
Clinton, Mississippi

Bluesman Eddie Cotton, Jr.’s music is rooted in the church. His father was a Pentecostal minister, shepherding the Christ Chapel Church of God in Christ that he founded in Clinton, Mississippi, just west of Jackson. While music was central to church services, his family and his congregation shunned secular music. Still, Cotton reflects, “The deepest of the blues I’ve ever played is in church.… The style they play on is nothing but blues.” Eddie Cotton performed at the Richmond Folk Festival in 2017 and is among the favorites returning to celebrate the festival’s 20th anniversary.

John Doyle & the Irish American Music Masters

John Doyle & the Irish American Music Masters

IRISH
Chicago; Brooklyn; Bristol, Vermont; Asheville, North Carolina; and County Louth, Ireland

The vision of guitarist and bandleader John Doyle, this stellar quintet brings together some of the best Irish musicians in America. It is no exaggeration to call these exceptional artists, all longtime friends and collaborators, a supergroup of Irish American music. Three members of the Irish American Music Masters—John Doyle, Seamus Egan, and John Williams—were founding members of Solás, an ensemble that played a key role in popularizing traditional Irish music in America. Rounding out the group are renowned vocalist Cathie Ryan and uilleann piper Ivan Goff. John is among the group of outstanding artists returning to celebrate the Richmond Folk Festival’s 20th anniversary.

Junior Sisk Band

Junior Sisk Band

bluegrass
Ferrum, Virginia

One of the festival favorites returning to celebrate the Richmond Folk Festival’s 20th anniversary, Junior Sisk is one of the most beloved bluegrass musicians around. It’s hard to imagine an artist more devoted to bluegrass, or more rooted in Southwest Virginia’s prolific bluegrass community, than Junior Sisk. Coming from Ferrum, Virginia, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he first gained acclaim for his songwriting, but over the years it’s Junior’s powerful, high-lonesome singing that has earned him the devotion of traditional bluegrass fans. Now Junior has assembled a fresh, hard-driving ensemble of top-notch musicians. Bursting with energy in live performance, and enhanced by the arresting vocals of Heather Berry Mabe, Junior Sisk Band features one of the most heralded names in bluegrass at the top of his game.

Lonnie Holley

Lonnie Holley

Afro-futuristic jazz, funk, and soul
Atlanta, Georgia

“What I’m working with, man, I’m working with all the way down to the nitty gritty, to the grit of the gritty, to the particles,” says Lonnie Holley. Through his unflinching, granular investigation of his life, Holley has emerged not only as one of the country’s foremost creators of visionary art but also as a musician of ever-increasing renown. Holley’s unique musical creations are colored by traces of jazz, funk, soul, blues, and gospel, combined with his personal experiences and expansive reflections on history and current events. He weaves these raw materials into sonic explorations that transcend and transport his listeners.

LOS RICOS featuring Sonia & Ismael

LOS RICOS featuring Sonia & Ismael

flamenco
New York, New York

Sonia Olla and Ismael Fernández have been called “the golden couple” of flamenco. Partners in life as well as on stage, they refer to themselves as “los ricos,” a term of endearment between them that celebrates the wealth and treasure they have found in flamenco and in each other. Noted for the depths of their rapport, the pair perfectly transmits the intimacy, grace, power, and emotional intensity of flamenco, with Olla’s precise, lightning-fast steps and the deft swirls of her gorgeous, long-trained bata de cola dress responding to every nuance of Fernández’s evocative voice.

Peni Candra Rini

Peni Candra Rini

Javanese sindhen
Tulungagung, East Java, Indonesia

Indonesian gamelan music has been beguiling international audiences as far back as 1889, when the first gamelan ensemble performed in Europe, famously catching the ear of composer Claude Debussy. The music’s allure is easy to grasp: haunting and ethereal, hammered out on a battery of metal percussion instruments that sound like nothing else, but difficult to replicate outside of the islands of Bali and Java. Though there are now dedicated gamelan ensembles in cities and universities worldwide, few can fully achieve the sound produced by musicians steeped in the tradition their whole lives. Enter Peni Candra Rini, one of Indonesia’s most celebrated contemporary artists—a singer, composer, and educator dedicated to preserving and sharing the musical traditions of gamelan, while pushing the music into new territory.

Rancho Aparte

Rancho Aparte

Colombian chirimía music
Quibdó, Colombia

In the far west of Colombia, where the rainforests meet the Pacific, lies the Chocó department, a land set apart from the rest of the nation by the Andes mountains, creating a historic refuge for Afro-Colombians and Indigenous people seeking a safe haven. The region still boasts the largest Afro-Colombian and Afro-Indigenous population in the nation, with a unique musical culture heavily influenced by West African sounds. Though the region’s best-known musical export is champeta music, chirimía is the real mainstay. Brash and full of youthful energy, Rancho Aparte has emerged as one of the most exciting contemporary chirimía ensembles since the septet formed in 2005 in Quibdo, Chocó’s capital city.

Sheryl Cormier & Cajun Sounds

Sheryl Cormier & Cajun Sounds

Cajun
Carencro, Louisiana

Known as the “Queen of the Cajun Accordion” and “La Reine de Musique Cadjine,” Sheryl Cormier is still packing the dance floors of Southwest Louisiana at 79 years old. “The reason I’m still doing that is, I love people,” she declares. “If I can entertain, I’m in my element.” With her band Cajun Sounds, Cormier plays the traditional way, with Francophone singing rising over the accordion- and fiddle-driven two steps and waltzes that connect listeners—and dancers—to the heart of Cajun culture.

Stepping Back

Stepping Back

step team competition
central Virginia

Among the most vital and captivating manifestations of long-practiced traditions on college campuses are the step shows organized by African American sororities and fraternities, known as Black Greek-Letter Organizations (BGLOs). Whether informal displays of pride and skill “on the yard,” or formalized competitions before thousands of fans, stepping celebrates African American culture, and vividly demonstrates the contributions that BGLOs make to campus and community life. For its 20th anniversary, the Richmond Folk Festival is thrilled to bring back another competitive step show, featuring six fraternities and sororities from the Richmond region, and hosted by Mecca Marsh. Who will come with the show-stopping, winning routine?

Supaman

Supaman

Native American hip hop
Crow Reservation, near Billings, Montana

Returning to the Richmond Folk Festival to celebrate the festival’s 20th anniversary is Christian Takes Gun Parrish, who performs under the name of Supaman. While the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana appears to be as far removed from the city streets of the Bronx as possible, Supaman speaks to the shared social struggles of both communities, combining hip hop beats with Native American music and dance. The hybrid sound and image he creates, which he has termed Crow Hop, demands an audience’s rapt attention when they first see this enigmatic, rhythmic, and striking collage. He is, simultaneously, a Fancy Dancer, a hip hop artist, a beatboxer, a DJ, and an ambassador for the Crow Nation.

Tremé Brass Band

Tremé Brass Band

New Orleans brass band
New Orleans, Louisiana

Central to the musical traditions of New Orleans are the African American brass bands that play for traditional funerals and street parades. Among the most beloved of these is the Tremé Brass Band from the venerable and storied Tremé neighborhood. The group is led by a New Orleans institution, drummer Benny Jones, Sr., who has been parading for over 60 years. As with most of New Orleans’s brass bands, the membership in Tremé is fluid, a mixture of old masters with the ‘rat-tat-tat’ born in their blood and young innovators adding more contemporary sounds. Last in Richmond during the National Folk Festival’s residency, the iconic Tremé Brass Band is back to celebrate the event’s 20th anniversary.

Trouble Funk

Trouble Funk

go-go
Washington, D.C

For nearly 50 years, Trouble Funk has helped spread Washington D.C.’s funky go-go sound from all-night dance parties in the DMV to audiences worldwide. One of the leading bands during go-go’s golden era in the 1980s, Trouble Funk’s intensified percussion and innovative use of electro-funk and early rap lyrics produced a brand of go-go that fit more squarely within African American urban musical expression up and down the East Coast, and earned them a loyal and passionate following that continues growing today. It is no surprise Trouble Funk is among the group of artists returning to celebrate the Richmond Folk Festival’s 20th anniversary.

Ustad Noor Bakhsh

Ustad Noor Bakhsh

benju master
Pasni, Balochistan, Pakistan

Pakistan’s Ustad Noor Bakhsh was one of the most unlikely internet sensations of the post-pandemic era. Born into a nomadic family of herders, and taught music by his father, Noor Bakhsh has been playing since he was a child. Though he’s worked professionally as the accompanist of singer Sabzal Sami for decades, he only came to the world’s attention as a soloist in 2022, at the age of 77—thanks to Pakistani anthropologist Daniyal Ahmed, who tracked Bakhsh down after watching him perform online. Part of what caught the world’s attention was Ustad Noor Bakhsh’s unusual instrument. He’s a master of the electric benju, a rare, five-stringed, keyed zither that’s unique to the Balochistan region of Pakistan. Bakhsh’s debut solo album, Jingul, came out just in 2022, which Pitchfork praised as “the kind of music that leaves you grasping for the spiritual and indefinable, that burrows into your soul and glows there.”

Wayne Henderson & Friends

Wayne Henderson & Friends

Appalachian finger-picked guitar
Rugby, Virginia

Wayne Henderson is the Appalachian guitarist the Nashville pickers talk about, the one who lives in a very remote area of the Blue Ridge and makes those acoustic guitars with the amazing tone, the ones that are so hard to get. Using a thumbpick and fingerpicks, his playing sounds like flatpicking, with amazing speed and fluidity, transforming fiddle and banjo pieces and even the occasional jazz standard into stunning guitar solos. A returning favorite for the 20th anniversary for the Richmond Folk Festival, Wayne will be joined by Randy Greer on mandolin, Josh Scott on bass, and Herb Key on rhythm guitar.