Angela Maria "Ani" DiFranco is an American singer-songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums. DiFranco's music has been classified as folk rock and alternative rock, although it has additional influences from punk, funk, hip hop and jazz. She has released all her albums on her own record label, Righteous Babe, giving her significant creative freedom.
Judith Marjorie Collins is a Grammy Award-winning American singer and songwriter with a career spanning over 60 years. She is known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records for her social activism, and for the clarity of her voice. Collins has released 28 studio albums, 4 live albums, numerous compilation albums and 4 holiday albums.
Greg Brown is an American folk musician from Iowa.
Mary Chapin Carpenter is an American rock, folk, and country music singer-songwriter. Carpenter spent several years singing in Washington, D.C. clubs before signing in the late 1980s with Columbia Records, who marketed her as a country singer. Carpenter's first album, 1987's Hometown Girl, did not produce any charting singles, although 1989's State of the Heart and 1990's Shooting Straight in the Dark each produced four Top 20 hits on the Billboard country singles charts.
Leticia ("Tish") Hinojosa is a folksinger recording in both Spanish and English. Hinojosa was the youngest of 13 children. Hinojosa's parents were Mexican immigrants. Known for singing both traditional Mexican folksongs and her own original songs, both in Spanish and English, Hinojosa accompanies herself on guitar, which she plays right-handed although she is naturally lefthanded. Influenced by traditional Mexican, folk, Tejano, conjunto, and country musics, Hinojosa considers her music to be music of the US/Mexico border. Hinojosa has charted twice on the Billboard country charts and has recorded several albums, primarily for Rounder Records.
Cassandra Wilson is an American jazz singer, songwriter, and producer from Jackson, Mississippi. She has been described by critic Gary Giddins as "a singer blessed with an unmistakable timbre and attack [who has] expanded the playing field" by incorporating blues, country, and folk music into her work.
Cheryl Wheeler is a Massachusetts-based singer-songwriter of contemporary folk music. She has recorded thirteen folk albums to date and has toured extensively throughout the United States since the mid-1970s.
Iris Luella DeMent is an American two-time Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter. DeMent's musical style includes elements of folk, country and gospel.
June Tabor is an English folk singer known for her solo work and her earlier collaborations with Maddy Prior and with Oysterband.
Hazel Jane Dickens was an American bluegrass singer, songwriter, double bassist and guitarist. Her music was characterized not only by her high, lonesome singing style, but also by her provocative pro-union, feminist songs. Cultural blogger John Pietaro noted that "Dickens didn’t just sing the anthems of labor, she lived them and her place on many a picket line, staring down gunfire and goon squads, embedded her into the cause." The New York Times extolled her as "a clarion-voiced advocate for coal miners and working people and a pioneer among women in bluegrass music." With Alice Gerrard, Dickens was one of the first women to record a bluegrass album.
Jennifer Kimball is a singer and songwriter who formed the folk duo The Story with Jonatha Brooke.
Jeff "Tain" Watts is a jazz drummer who has performed with Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Betty Carter, Michael Brecker, Alice Coltrane, Ravi Coltrane, and others.
Ray Wylie Hubbard is an American singer and songwriter.
Barbara Ann Mandrell is an American country music singer, musician, and actress. She is known for a long series of country hits in the 1970s and 1980s and her own primetime variety TV show on NBC that helped her become one of country's most successful female vocalists of that period. She gave her last concert at the Grand Ole Opry House on October 23, 1997, and subsequently retired from performing music. Mandrell was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2009. Mandrell was also inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2016. Although retired, Mandrell is still a member of the Grand Ole Opry, an honor she has held since 1972.
Pamela Yvonne Tillis is an American country music singer and actress. She is the daughter of country music singer Mel Tillis.
Mary Lou Lord is an indie folk musician, busker and recording artist.
Barbara Manning is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist whose albums blend elements of rock, folk, pop and proto-punk. She's also known for her cover versions of often obscure pop songs. In addition to an acclaimed solo career, Manning has been active in a number of bands, including 28th Day, World of Pooh, SF Seals, and The Go-Luckys!.
Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer are a musical duo who perform folk, bluegrass and children’s music. They have performed with Pete Seeger, Theodore Bikel, Tom Paxton, Patsy Montana, Riders in the Sky and others. The Washington Area Music Association has recognized the duo with over 60 Wammie Awards for folk, bluegrass, and children’s music.
Marti Jones is an American singer and visual artist known for her albums and her paintings. She sings, records, and performs as "Marti Jones" and exhibits visual art as "Marti Jones Dixon."
Mollie O'Brien is an Americana, bluegrass, R&B, and folk singer from Wheeling, West Virginia. She has released a number of Americana albums with her brother, Grammy-winner Tim O'Brien. She has also released five positively received solo albums. She is currently based in Denver, and regularly tours and performs with her husband, guitarist Rich Moore, as a duo. Together they have released one studio album, Saints and Sinners and a live CD, 900 Baseline. She has regularly appeared on shows such as A Prairie Home Companion, Mountain Stage, and contributed vocals to the Grammy-winning album True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe. She is known for her interpretations of classic songs by artists such as Tom Waits, Memphis Minnie, Willie Dixon, Chuck Berry, Si Kahn, Terence Trent D'Arby, and Kate MacLeod.
