I grew up in Van Lear, KY, in the coalfields. After high school I took up with a bunch of ol' boys playing bluegrass around east KY and West Virginia at an assortment of regional festivals and venues. During this time I made a powerful connection with music and started getting deeper and deeper into the roots of mountain music. A whole new world opened up. I moved to Morehead, KY when I was twenty-four and attended Morehead State University studying video production and traditional music. I got a degree and took to the roads singing old mountain ballads and playing banjo and fiddle tunes. Though I've traveled and seen many wonderful places both on this continent and abroad, no place eased my countenance like being in east Kentucky. So I went in search of a community where I could play and teach mountain music. Whitesburg, KY has been a cultural hub in central Appalachia for many years and here I found a community of artist, activist, miners, God fearing people and hell-raisers. Resilient people doing what they have to in order to survive. I currently perform original, country and old time mountain music as a solo artist and with some great friends including Clack Mountain String Band, Rich and the Po' Folks, and sometimes the Dirk Powell Band. I also teach workshops, private lessons and mountain youth in Letcher County for an after school program called Pick and Bow. This is what I love to do. And even though the musicians struggle is greater here than in most places, there's nothing like watching the sun rise and set over southeast Kentucky to the low drones of an ancient fiddle or banjo tune.
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I have been featured as a solo artist and with bands at festivals and workshops such as: The Festival of American Fiddle Tunes (Port Townsend, WA), Sore Fingers Week (Oxfordshire, England), Cowan Creek Mountain Music School (Whitesburg, KY), Celtic Connections (Glasgow, Scotland), BlackPot Festival (Lafayette, LA), Old Town School of Folk Music (Chicago, IL), Clack Mountain Music Festival (Morehead, KY), White Oak Mountain Bluegrass Festival (Cleveland, TN), Great Lakes Folk Festival (East Lansing, MI), MerleFest (Wilkesboro, NC), Portland Old Time Gathering (Portland, OR) and many others.
