2024 Lineup is now mostly announced - two more acts coming soon!
Janie Rothfield and the Fine Tuners
Janie is excited to return to Seattle and perform at the Old Growth Old Time Festival with The Fine Tuners! The Fine Tuners features Allan Carr's powerful and inventive old time guitar backup and vocals, plus special banjo and bass guest musicians from the PNW to make up the full band sound! Janie and The Fine Tuners will rock the house with explosive and inventive instrumentals, songs for listening and singing along with, and most of all, a whole lot of fun!
About Janie Rothfield
Janie Rothfield is a power-house fiddler, clawhammer banjo and guitar player who is widely recognized for her traditional and inventive style, in the pocket rhythm, whimsical groove and her award-winning original tunes. She is a full time touring musician playing concerts, workshops, festivals and dances around the world and online. Janie has been performing, recording and teaching music that is rooted in Traditional American and Celtic Music since her teens starting in New England where she learned and older (and younger!) generation musicians from New England and Quebec. Her travels have enabled her to intersect, play with, perform and record with a plethora of wonderful old time musicians such as Hank Bradley and Jody Stecher, Eddie Lowe, Cathy Fink, Ivy and David Sheppard, Jimmy McCown, Paul David Smith, Hilarie Burhans and many more! Janie has over 15 highly acclaimed recordings to her credit, including her debut "solo" album "In the Moment" 2006, iFiddle theyBanjo (2010) and Out of Thin Air (2015) featuring all of her own compositions! Her newest recording, "The Two of Us" with husband and musical partner Allan Carr, with music featuring their signature brand of New and Trad Old Time and Celtic Music. Janie has traveled the world with her unique brand of traditional based music including the UK, France, Germany, Holland, Australia, Canada and throughout the USA. Janie is also the founder and director (and instructor) of Janie’s Jumpstart Home Based Weekend Music Camps held in homes around the world! She currently performs with her husband guitarist/singer Allan Carr, The Idumea Quartet (Europe based avant garde-experimental-trad-string folk quartet) and with her contra dance band Coracree.
Videos of Janie
Janie's Original Tune "Harry Garrison" with some "Fine Tuners" Shona Carr and Cameron DeWhitt
Wilson Douglas's Mother Flanagan with Allan Carr
Ben Hunter & Joe Seamons
Seattle songsters Ben Hunter & Joe Seamons give life to voices that have long been silenced in American culture. Their award-winning performances are highlighted by story-telling that, rather than bringing the past to life, vividly shows how the past still lives in the present.
Through their songs, audiences witness current issues crop up again and again in folk songs, dance tunes, acoustic blues, and prison ballads. Ben & Joe bounce from fiddle & banjo breakdowns to a cappella field hollers, early jazz to gospel songs featuring Piedmont guitar style and rattlin’ bones.
With the same versatility that won them the International Blues Challenge in 2016, and allowed them to record with National Heritage Fellow Phil Wiggins, the duo celebrates the ways Americans have triumphed over oppression through the vitality of their art. Audiences walk away from Ben & Joe’s concerts and workshops inspired to learn more of their own history, and engage more deeply with their communities.
Jack Dwyer & the Don’t-Have-A-Cow-Boys
The Don't-Have-A-Cow-Boys are Jack Dwyer on lead guitar and vocals, Bobby Winstead on rhythm guitar and vocals, Joe Fulton on fiddle and a rotating car of the regions finest rhythm sections.
Alex McLeod - Square Dance Caller
Alex MacLeod brings a high energy, welcoming, inclusive, and humor-filled vibe to his dance calling - lots of laughter and smiles are a hallmark of his dances. Alex is a Seattle based old time fiddler and dance caller, who organizes the monthly Tractor Tavern square dance in Seattle and calls squares and contra dances all over the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. An early member of the Seattle Subversive Square Dance Society, Alex believes that social dance really can be a subversive act, helping knit together communities in the face of increasing trends towards isolation and polarization. His calling has been influenced by folks like Bill Martin, Phil Jamison, Susan Michaels, Charmaine Slaven, Sue Hulsether, Paul Silveria, and many more.
@tractortavernsquaredance
Eclectic Cloggers
The Eclectic Cloggers is a Seattle dance group that performs a high energy style of traditional Appalachian clogging to live Old-Time Music. This percussive dance form comes from the eastern mountain region of the United States, where it began as a mix of Irish, Scottish, and English step dances. Since 1982, the Eclectic Cloggers have performed at festivals and community events thoughout the Northwest. We enjoy teaching workshops to show people how much fun it can be to combine percussive dancing to great Old-Time music.
Miriam Hacksaw
Miriam Hacksaw (she/they) is a queer mixed Malayali-American fiddler, banjoist and rhythm bones player from the Pacific Northwest. She is known for reinterpreting tunes from Kerala, passed down from her extended Malayali family. Miriam released a demo with her sibling Rye of pan-amercian proletarian dance tunes on bandcamp, recorded during a podcast episode on Get Up In The Cool with Cameron DeWhitt. Founder of the old time punk band Foraging and the Rattling Bones, Miriam also tours as the fiddler for the Flotsom River Circus. You can follow her radical queer fusion projects on all social media platforms @miriamhacksaw
Grace Honeywell
A glitter besotted troubadour, Grace combines her fiddle, guitar and voice along with a heaping dose of unapologetic authenticity to her latest solo project. The effect? A warm welcome to feeling a little less alone in the cacophony of being alive. Raised in Southern Oregon, nestled between the Siskiyou and Cascade mountain ranges, Grace has always found her home in exploration. She’s traversed life around the world - collecting experiences, playing in projects, studying different cultures and absorbing lessons across five continents. Her sound reflects this as it’s a vibrant kaleidoscope of influences she conducts to tell stories and connect with those around her. Her playing carries threads of Scottish, Irish, Scandinavian, Bluegrass, Old Time, Folk, and Americana styles, woven through lyrical themes of gratitude, taking chances, leaning into our messy but beautiful world, and fiercely leading with love. Whether on a stage or in a crowded pub, Grace is a person who dedicatedly commits herself to ensuring your cup be a little more full, from sharing even just one tune together.
Instagram @gracehoneywell
Tunesday
More info coming soon!
The Crankie Factory
What is a crankie? It has nothing to do with being cranky! It’s a 19th century storytelling art form. It involves illustrating a long scroll which is loaded into a viewing box. The scroll is then hand-cranked as the story unfolds. A video is worth a thousand words. Skip to the bottom to see some video shorts.
Sue Truman has been making, performing, teaching and presenting crankies for the last 13 years. Her website, The Crankie Factory, has over a million views and is the “go to” place for information. She has presented and performed in Europe and both US and Canadian coasts. Along with Cil Pierce, they have been cranking out the stories to the delight of audiences young and not-so-young!
No stranger to old time music, Sue fiddled for square dances for decades and recorded with the band Lost Rosin on the New Young Fogies album.
Have you always wanted to crank a crankie? Stick around to the end of the show. You will have a chance to crank crankies, automatons and other things with cranks. Join us for a good time!
Videos:
Crankies: Storytelling Machines
Other Ways to Use Your Suitcase
Sugar in the Gourd for the Girls
Crankies with Shadow Puppetry and Automaton
Canote Brothers
Greg and Jere Canote are Identical twins whose music is all about having a good time. They do, you will. It’s steeped in Vintage Americana — forgotten fiddle tunes, swing classics, and quirky novelty songs — but with their own twists (and a few of their brilliant original takes on the world around us). They’re fabulous musicians, moving effortlessly among fiddle, guitar, banjo, ukulele and various hybrids, and their genetically-matched voices recall brother duets from the Blue Sky Boys to the Everlys.
The Canote Brothers were recently the subject of a documentary by Larry Edelman. https://thecanotetwins.com
Thursday Contra
Info coming soon!
Sunday Shape Note Singing
More info coming soon!
Details:
3-5 pm at Phinney Center, room 36. Brick building at 6615 Dayton Ave N. (98103) singing from Denson Sacred Harp. (Note that currently, this singing requests participants to take a home Covid test beforehand, with some extras available at the singing, and a freewill offering is collected to cover rent.)
