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Featured Performers
The following is compiled from promotional materials provided by our featured performers and from Internet websites.
As a founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers, Mike played an integral role in helping revive interest in a variety of traditional music, now played by thousands of young musicians across the country. Since his first recordings with the Ramblers in the late 1950s, Mike has gone on to record almost 40 albums, both solo and with others.
Alan Jabbour, a Florida native born in Jacksonville, has been a violinist since the age of seven. Jabbour became interested in folk music and folklore while a graduate student at Duke University. In 1969 Alan Jabbour was appointed to head the Archive of Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture) at the U.S. Library of Congress. While there he supervised the national archival collection for folk music and folklore. In 1976 Jabbour became the founding director of the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress. He continued in the position until stepping down in 1999. Upon his retirement from federal service, Jabbour resumed playing the fiddle more actively and now makes frequent appearances as a musician and fiddle teacher.
The Georgia Sea Island Singers continue a tradition begun almost a century ago on St. Simons Island, Georgia, for the purpose of preserving the rich reservoirs of African-American culture, customs and the songs of the Gullah language spoken on the isolated islands of the Georgia coast. Frankie and Doug Quimby travel throughout the world performing slave songs and dances describing the world of their own ancestors. Frankie Sullivan Quimby was born and raised on the Georgia Sea Islands. Her family took the name Sullivan after the Emancipation and is one of the few families that can trace its ancestry back to a specific place in Africa. Frankie is descended from slaves on the Hopeton and Altama Plantations in Glynn County. Many of her relatives still live in the Brunswick, Georgia area and on St. Simons Island. Doug Quimby has been singing since the age of four. He was born in Baconton, Georgia where his family worked as sharecroppers earning as little as $9.25 for an entire year of work. Douglas and his wife, Frankie share a common musical heritage though they grew up miles apart. Doug's grandfather spoke in the Gullah dialect, indicating that many of his ancestors worked on the coastal plantations before being sold to inland landowners.
Piano player and singer Liz Pennock began performing professionally as a solo artist in 1975. She has lived and worked in Colorado, Arizona, Florida, and her native Ohio. Undaunted by what might seem a limitation, Pennock was born minus two fingers on each hand, a fact not evident from the other side of the piano. She has developed her own powerful ivory-tickling style, inspiring countless listeners. Pennock's songwriting ranges from the romantic My Best Fan to the rollicking He Plays the Boogie. Guitarist and vocalist Paul "Dr. Blues" Shambarger has roots in northern Ohio where he began his musical career as a drummer for bands in the late 1960s. His band Lovechain recorded the 1968 single "Sadness In My Mind" on the Westwood Records label. Doc's witty and sometimes biting lyrics can be heard in his crowd-pleasing favorites Alimony Blues and Cruel Jewel. For additional information visit www.lizpennock.com. Nashville Underground was formed in 1999 by a group of hit songwriters that began designing a record company. Their goal was simple: to turn the world on to the depth and breadth of talent in Nashville's unique songwriting community and to revolutionize the traditional record label/recording artist relationship by turning the deal upside down. The Nashville Underground Record Collective is a place where the finest performing songwriters can record their original versions of the hit songs they have penned for other artists, as well as those more personal songs that belong exclusively to their own performance voices. Several hit songwriters who are members of Nashville Underground will perform at the 50th Annual Florida Folk Festival, including Billy Dean, Chuck Cannon, Pam Rose, Chuck Jones and Lari White. For additional information visit www.nashville-underground.com.
Chuck Cannon grew up in the low country of the South Carolina coast where both his father and grandfather were Pentecostal preachers. His earliest musical influence was a unique strain of gospel music with an amalgam of Appalachian folk and black spirituals. Chuck has penned many songs, including the 1993 Academy of Country Music's Song of the Year, How Do You Like Me Now and I Love the Way You Love Me, performed by John Michael Montgomery and written with country artist Toby Keith. Pam Rose credits her "space brat" childhood with bringing out her technical abilities. Her father was the communications manager for NASA's Apollo project and she now runs her own digital studio producing her own records. Pam has penned such popular tunes as I'll Still Be Loving You, performed by Restless Heart; Safe in the Arms of Love, performed by Martina McBride; and Ring On Her Finger, Time On Your Hands, performed by Reba McEntire and Lee Greenwood. In a powerful alliance with Mary Ann Kennedy, Kennedy-Rose wrote and recorded two critically acclaimed albums and opened for Sting's World Tour. For additional information visit www.pamrose.com. Chuck Jones, a native of Memphis, has had a very successful songwriting career. His songs have been recorded by Ronnie Milsap, Patti LaBelle, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Kenny Rogers, Charlie Daniels, Deana Carter, Diamond Rio, Randy Travis, Reba McEntire, Collin Raye, Lari White, Ty Herndon, Patty Loveless and Billy Dean, among others. His song, Your Love Amazes Me, sung by by John Berry won Song of the Year at the Country Radio Music Awards and the Music City News Country Songwriter Awards. It was also nominated by the ACM for Song Of The Year and was a Top Ten AC song for Michael English. Chuck received another Top Ten single on the A/C charts with Faithfully, recorded by Peter Cetera. He and Deanna Carter co-wrote three songs for her multi-platinum debut disc, including the #2 hit Count Me In. Doug Gauss has performed at the Florida Folk Festival in White Springs for nearly 30 years. His first performance was at the age of nine in 1959 when he played cornet accompanying Greek ethnic dancers from his native Tarpon Springs. Florida Artists Hall Of Fame member Will McLean, with whom Doug had a close personal relationship from 1967 until his death in 1990, gave his written permission to use any of his works "...as you see fit." Doug also enjoyed close relationships with Florida folk legends Gamble Rogers, Don Grooms, Paul Champion, and Jim Ballew, among others, and his repertoire includes the works of the best of contemporary Florida songwriters with their expressed blessings. Doug plays several folk instruments but is most widely known for his unique style of fingerpicked guitar, which Gamble Rogers likened to "an enchanted music box." |
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Mike Seeger, a five-time Grammy nominated folk artist, has devoted his
life to performing the home music made by American southerners before the media
age. Music from True Vine grows out of hundreds of years of British traditions
that blended in our country with equally ancient African traditions to produce
songs and sounds that are unique to the United States. Mike's music conveys
all the depth of feeling, the sheer energy and the infinite variety and texture
of true rural musicians. Like earlier musicians, Mike seeks out his own vision
of the music by creating it within its traditions, making his music uniquely
his own.
Roy Book Binder is and has been a blues-singing, guitar-picking, song-
writing raconteur for the past 30 years! "Book Binder's inspirations go
way back. Having worked closely in the '60s with blues masters Rev. Gary Davis
and Pink Anderson, and having toured constantly for decades, Book Binder is
a seasoned, mature bluesman with a sound of his own. He is a genuine example
of the traveling bluesman tradition that began in the '20s, was revived in the
'60s and continues today," (Living Blues Magazine). For additional information
visit 
Guy Clark is a well-respected songwriter from Texas who grew up alongside
Townes Van Zandt and Jerry Jeff Walker. Clark is best known for his songwriting
abilities and his easy-going manner on stage. Throughout his 30-plus-year career
as a professional musician, Guy has turned out some major country hits, including
Desperadoes Waiting for a Train. His songs have been performed by notable
recording artists such as Townes Van Zandt, Nanci Griffith, Lyle Lovett, Jerry
Jeff Walker, Rodney Crowell and Johnny Cash. In 1982, Clark's Heartbroke,
performed by Ricky Skaggs landed him a #1 record.
Mary McLaughlin was born and raised in Northern Ireland. She first started
to sing in Gaelic when she was eleven years old. After moving to London at the
age of eighteen, she combined a career in special education with playing in
various Celtic groups where she started to develop her songwriting and arrangement
abilities. As a performer on the English folk scene she worked with many artists
including Martin Simpson, the internationally renowned British guitarist. Mary
moved to California in 1997 to join Martin Simpson's Band of Angels. It was
here she began her collaboration with William Coulter, a Gourd Music recording
artist, which led to the 1998 Windham Hill release Celtic Requiem. For
additional information visit 
Suzy Bogguss, a native of Aledo, Illinois, began singing in her local
church choir at an early age. Over the years she developed a following throughout
the Midwest, northeast and Canada, playing whenever and wherever she could.
Suzy has opened for such acts as Dan Seals and Asleep at the Wheel. She moved
to Nashville where she eventually signed with Capitol Nashville. Suzy has had
several gold albums and Top Ten singles, including Drive South. For additional
information visit 
Liz
Pennock & Dr. Blues, Upright recording artists, have been performing
together since 1983, touring virtually every week of the year to small towns
and cities alike. Based in St. Petersburg, Florida, the piano and guitar team
captivates audiences with their vast repertoire of classic, contemporary, and
original blues.
Billy Dean, the Academy of Country Music's 1992 Male Vocalist of the
Year and winner of the Song of the Year for Somewhere in My Broken Heart,
has been a very successful singer/songwriter on the Nashville scene. During
Billy Dean's eight-year tenure at Capitol Records, he recorded seven albums,
including a greatest hits package selling over four million units. As a songwriter
Billy penned four of his top five hits including two Number One songs on country
music charts. Billy Dean, a native of Quincy, Florida, has performed several
times at the Florida Folk Festival even before his popularity as a country music
star. For more information visit 
Lari White, born and raised in Dunedin, Florida, became one of Nashville's
most popular new country singers of the mid '90s. A million-selling artist and
hit songwriter, she began singing gospel music with her family as a child, performing
at local church and community gatherings. Lari attended the University of Miami
where she studied music engineering and vocals. While in Miami she began writing
her own songs and performing professionally. Lari eventually moved to Nashville
where her second album, Wishes became her breakthrough, producing such Top 10
singles as That's My Baby, Now I Know and That's How You Know (When
You're In Love). In recent years Lari has branched out into movies. Her
first role was the striking woman who caught Tom Hanks' eye in the final scene
of the Zameckis blockbuster movie Cast Away. For additional information
visit 
American
Folklife Center, Library of Congress