We're honored to welcome back North Carolina Folk Heritage Award winner Benton Flippen, a legendary fiddler who comes from a generation of famed players at the epicenter of Southern mountain music. Born in 1920 in rural Surrey County, North Carolina, Benton started playing banjo and fiddle as a teenager, and developed a distinctive style marked by syncopation, swoopy blue notes, and strong rhythm. Benton performs with the Mostly Mountain Boys, featuring clawhammer and two-finger banjo player Paul Brown, North Carolina banjo-uke ace Terri McMurray, and guitarist John Schwab.

Raised in Rural Retreat, Virginia, 22-year-old Elizabeth LaPrelle has been winning prizes for her singing at fiddler's conventions since she was eleven. She was featured on the national "Crooked Roads" tour sponsored by the National Council for Traditional Arts and has also appeared on the famed radio show A Prairie Home Companion.

All the way from Bernal Heights, San Francisco, the Knuckle Knockers feature Karen Celia Heil (Creole Belles) on fiddle, guitar, banjo, and vocals; Martha Hawthorne (Stairwell Sisters) on guitar, banjo, and vocals; and Bill Foss (Crooked Jades, Earl Brothers) on mandolin, fiddle, banjo, vocals. The group regales audiences with all the favorite themes that fill any narrative need: love, death, fire, and brimstone.