Award-winning Kentucky Singer/songwriter Mitch Barrett has been inspired by his Appalachian heritage and the values it instills. He has won many songwriting competitions, including the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival in Lyons, CO; the Merlefest Chris Austin Songwriting Competition, and the prestigious Kerrville New Folk Competition. According to a Bluegrass Unlimited review, Barrett’s music has “many of the best elements of traditional Appalachian music, including purity, integrity, intensity, and vivid imagery.”

Old-timey Chattanooga musician Matt Downer returns to the Moneta stage with his latest band, The New Binkley Brothers. Last year, Downer made a lot of new fans when he performed with his duo Citico. In his new band, Downer is joined by Daniel Binkley and Clark Williams. Since beginning a field recording project in 1998 on Sand Mountain, Alabama, Downer has earned a growing reputation for his efforts to document and record the best of authentic southern mountain music. According to one reviewer of The New Binkley Brothers “In true southern fashion, these gents toe that line between saints and sinners; get down and get right and are as refreshing as cool corn liquor on a hot summer’s night.”

Memphis musician Alvin Youngblood Hart burst onto the music scene in 1996 with his debut CD Big Mama’s Door, which landed him two Living Blues Awards and a W.C. Handy Award for Best New Artist. In 1999, Hart teamed up with legendary producer Jim Dickinson for Start With the Soul, which was chosen in the New York Times top 10 releases of 2000 as well as the BBC’s blues record of the year. In 2003, Hart received a Grammy nomination for the acoustic Down in the Alley and in 2004 he received a Grammy for his contribution to Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster. More recently, Hart has participated in a tour of Mississippi high schools as a member of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, and in the summer of 2007 hit the big screen as a juke joint musician in the Denzel Washington directed film The Great Debaters.

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