The Lineup for the 2012 Montana Folk

Festival


We are proud to announce the first six performing artists/groups coming to the Montana Folk Festival in 2012.  Admission to all three days of the festival is free. Nearly 25 groups representing a broad diversity of musical and cultural traditions will perform on the festival's six stages in Uptown Butte.

The second year of the Montana Folk Festival in Butte is shaping up nicely as we chug along under a full head of steam. Everyone planning to attend, no matter how well they think they know this festival, should come expecting to be amazed. This group only represents a little less than a third of those who will be performing in July. We're just getting started, so check our Facebook page for the latest developments.

The Claire Lynch Band

Bluegrass

Huntsville, Alabama

  Audio / Biography

Claire Lynch is an acoustic pioneer who continually pushes the boundaries of the bluegrass genre. The Claire Lynch Band is a quartet that has the innate ability to perfectly interpret the beauty, subtlety, and genre-defying sophistication of Claire's music.

At the age of 12, Claire's family moved from Kingston, New York to Huntsville, Alabama. There she began her education in country music and got caught up in the bluegrass revival of the 1970's, joining a band called Hickory Wind.  Later, the band changed its name to the Front Porch String Band with Claire's vocals as its centerpiece. She made history leading the Front Porch String Band as it evolved in the 80's and 90's into "one of the sharpest and most exciting post-modern bluegrass bands on the circuit."

As a songwriter, her tunes have been recorded by Patty Loveless, The Seldom Scene, Cherryholmes, Kathy Mattea, the Whites and Stephanie Davis.

In 1991, the Front Porch String Band was resurrected with the album, "Lines and Traces," a move that ultimately led to Claire's solo career launching in earnest.  Friends for a Lifetime was released in 1993 followed by Moonlighter in 1995 (Claire's first GRAMMY nomination) and Silver and Gold in 1997 (also nominated for a GRAMMY).  She was named the IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year in 1997.  In 2000, the band released the album Love Light. In 2005, Lynch formed the Claire Lynch Band and released New Day. It was a hit on the bluegrass charts and earned her IBMA nominations for "Song of the Year" and "Female Vocalist of the Year."

Her career has come full circle:  once again, she's a creative powerhouse at the top of her game, performing with one of the sharpest and most exciting post-modern bluegrass bands of the decade.

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Corey Ledet and His Zydeco Band

Zydeco

Saint Martinville, Louisiana

  Audio / Biography

Corey Ledet was born and raised in Houston, Texas, but spent his summers with family in small-town Parks, Louisiana. The Creole culture has its roots in Louisiana, but spread across the country, including neighboring Texas. Because of this, he was able to be immersed at all times in the Creole culture he loved so much.

His love for the Creole/Zydeco music was instant and hard for him to ignore. He studied the originators of the music such as Clifton Chenier, John Delafose, and Boozoo Chavis. He branched out to include studying any (and all) artists of Zydeco.  By the age of 10, he picked up shows playing drums for Houston-based band Wilbert Thibodeaux and the Zydeco Rascals and slowly learned the main instrument of the music - the accordion. He came to truly love any type of accordion - the single-note, triple-note and piano key accordions - and any others.

By the time he graduated from high school, he was certain that music was the focal point of his future. Corey eventually moved to Louisiana to be surrounded by this beautiful culture at all times. He remains true to his roots and searches for ways to include them in his music. He is able to infuse old and new styles of Zydeco into his own unique sound from all of the people he studied and was influenced by.

He also appreciates the other traditional sound indigenous to Louisiana in Cajun music and has been able to expand his repertoire to include these influences as well.

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Diunna Greenleaf and Blue Mercy Band

Blues

Houston, Texas

  Audio / Biography

Diunna Greenleaf, the leader of Blue Mercy, is a native Texan (Houston) who has a background steeped in gospel music. Influenced by the likes of Koko Taylor, Aretha Franklin, Rosetta Thorpe, Sam Cooke, Charles Brown and her own parents Ben & Mary Ella Greenleaf (Gospel). She has developed "Diunna's style of Blues" in the same tradition as so many other great Texas blues men and women. She combines intricate patches of jazz, gospel and heartfelt soul to create a kind of blues that takes one on an emotional roller coaster ride.

Diunna and her band Blue Mercy have performed throughout the United States and the world. She has performed at the Lugano Blues Festival and the Bern Jazz Festival, both in Switzerland, as well as the Cahors Blues Festival in France. For the 2012 season, Diunna is slated to do festivals in Canada, Italy, and Switzerland, as well as other performances throughout Europe, Asia and the United States. Diunna has opened for and performed with the likes of Bob Margolin, Keb Mo, Willie "Pinetop" Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, James Cotton, Carrie Bell, Big Bill Morganfield, Smoking Joe Kubek and B'Nois King, Anson Funderburge, Sam Meyers and the Rockets, Bernard Allison, Odetta, Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers, I.J. Gosey, Sherman Robertson, Kenny Neal, the late great Teddy "Cry Cry" Reynolds, and numerous others.

This year Diunna has been nominated for the "Koko Taylor Award-Traditional Blues Female" and "Traditional Blues Album-Trying To Hold On" at the 2012 Blues Music Awards in Memphis, TN on May 5th. Her new CD "Trying To Hold On" is #1 on XM/Sirius Radio Bluesville Chart, #1 on French Blues charts, #1 on Living Blues charts for December, and is at the top of Blues charts in UK, Italy, Australia and USA.

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Samba Ngo

Congolese Soukous

Santa Cruz, California

  Audio / Biography

Samba Ngo is a charismatic performer, a master guitarist, singer and composer whose infectious, danceable rhythms and powerful lyrics have influenced two generations of world musicians. Samba grew up listening to the wood and palm-fiber-stringed nsambi, and the likembe (thumb piano) in his village in the Congo, and from these sounds he has developed a unique guitar style. Raised in tumultuous times, his lyrics, sung in English, French, and Lingala, his native tongue, are politically potent, but always carry a message of hope. Through his long career in Africa, France and the United States, with 19 albums, several groundbreaking groups, and a host of concert appearances to his credit, Samba Ngo has established himself as one of West Africa's most important musical ambassadors.

Ngo's (pronounced en-go) musical roots go back to the tiny village of Dibulu, in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. His father was an herbal healer, or nganga, who played the nsambi and used chants and songs as well as herbal medicines in his healing rituals. Samba learned the natural healing power of music by watching his father, and soon learned to play the likembe and guitar to accompany him.

In 1964, he moved to the city of Brazzaville, and joined the influential band Echo Noire as their guitarist. Ngo and the band immigrated to Paris winning acclaim with performances throughout Europe and Africa on as part of the group M'Bamina, touring worldwide, recording nine albums until 1986 when Samba decided to move to the United States.

Now based in Santa Cruz, California, Ngo still makes frequent trips back to Paris, where he is a revered figure and where is working on several new recordings with his French producer. Samba has also recently returned to the Republic of Congo for a series of concerts and a triumphal return for one of that nation's cultural treasures.

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Hot Club of Cowtown

Western Swing

Austin, Texas

  Audio / Biography

Since 1998, Austin-based Hot Club of Cowtown has grown to be recognized as the hardest-swinging Western swing trio on the planet. They have opened stadiums for such artists as Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson and continue to bring their brand of western swing to a wide range of festival audiences all over the world. But for guitarist Whit Smith, fiddler Elana James and bassist Jake Erwin, it has always been about staying true to their roots.

Along the way, Hot Club of Cowtown has created an international cult following for their sonic personification of joy and unique sound inspired by their namesakes: "Hot Club" from the hot jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli's Hot Club of France, and "Cowtown" from the Western swing influence of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.

Their latest effort is What Makes Bob Holler, a 14-song tribute that pays respect to Bob Wills' legendary music while putting Hot Club's own signature on each song. What Makes Bob Holler reflects the same spirited live vibe and offers the band a terrific platform to show off their ace musicianship and flaunt these inspirations: Smith's hot electric guitar played through a vintage 1936 Gibson amplifier, James' sometimes gorgeous, sometimes frenetic fiddle, and Erwin's jaw-dropping slap bass, all mixed with three-part harmony vocals. "We're playing what knocked us out about Western swing in the first place — the early fiery energy and jazzy improvisations," says James.

Hot Club dwells between the daily grind of touring and the euphoria of live shows through a landscape where local traditions are becoming more and more diluted, and modern life more electronic. The journey has galvanized this Texas trio to become more devoted than ever to keeping their music sincere, free of irony, and focused on a simpler time.

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Roan Mountain Hilltoppers

Old-Time Appalachian music

Roan Mountain, Tennessee

  Audio / Biography

The Roan Mountain Hilltoppers are one of America's most authentic Old-Time String Bands, whose roots run deep in the rich music traditions of the southern Appalachian Mountains. Headed by Bill and Janice Birchfieid, they live in the high reaches of Roan Mountain, Tennessee, where the band started more than 30 years ago. Today, they continue to keep alive their musical heritage with tunes that date back to the early settlers of upper East Tennessee and western North Carolina.

Initially, the members of the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers were Bill's father, Joe, an old-time fiddler and Uncle Creede Birchfieid, who played the old-time banjo, with a two-finger, up-style lick. Bill's mother, Ethel, played the wash board, sang ballads and told stories. At that time, Bill played the guitar in his unique upside down and backward left-handed style, and his wife, Janice, on the homemade washtub bass completed the group. After the death of Joe Birchfieid in 2002, Bill assumed the role of the fiddler as well as playing the banjo and autoharp. Joining them is Matt Kinman "lil Hobo" on guitar and Joshua Hayes on banjo.

While they have a long collection of honors, the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers perhaps are best known and loved for the open jams they have held at fiddlers' conventions - traditional music and dance contests scattered across the Southeast. For decades, the Birchfield's welcoming attitude toward all musicians has taught and influenced countless young performers resulting in a living legacy of talent that knows how to play music ragged... but right.

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