Artists

I first fell in love with the sweet song of the mountain dulcimer while visiting Nashville Indiana. The beautiful music floated throughout the shops of Nashville and created a song in my heart for the past thirty years. I am the author of 7 Mountain Dulcimer tablature books and love to share the music I have discovered through the years in my books, CD and by teaching. I invite you to visit my web store page where you will find Appalachian, Celtic, Sacred Hymns, Christmas and old time music. I have been an instructor of DAD Appalachian dulcimer for over 14 years, and have taught at festivals and schools such as; Kentucky Music Week in Bardstown, Gateway Festival in Belleville Illinois, Western Kentucky, Lexington Kentucky, and several festivals in neighboring states. Contact me for workshops or mountain dulcimer books. www.jackiearmstrongdulcimermusic.com

Ruth Barrett is an internationally known mountain dulcimer artist and singer who began playing in 1971, and is recognized as a pioneering contributor to the California mountain dulcimer renaissance of the 1970s and 80s, and to the U.S. Goddess Spirituality Movement. Ruth is best known for her specialized genre of music – songs that focus on magically themed traditional folk songs inspired by folklore, goddess mythology, celebration of women, and the spirituality innate in the natural world. Ruth’s classical finger picking style on the mountain dulcimer, her arrangements of traditional Celtic folk music, combined with a powerful and beautiful voice, has enchanted audiences for over four decades.

As an experienced mountain dulcimer teacher, Ruth’s accessible and supportive teaching style, plus her enthusiasm, has successfully taught thousands of people to play the mountain dulcimer, from private instruction to national folk festivals and music retreats. Collaborating with dulcimer builder and player, Joellen Lapidus, Ruth transcribed Joni Mitchell’s dulcimer arrangements for the songbooks, Hits and Misses (Warner Bros. Pub.). Ruth’s is celebrating her twelfth recording and 2020 CD release, Once and Future Amazons.

Phyllis Brown studied Music Education at Tennessee Tech University and was delighted when her father, Fred Woods, built both her first mountain dulcimer and hammered dulcimer.

Phyllis has always enjoyed teaching others what she has learned, and has taught and performed at numerous venues, ranging from city and county folk festivals, Old Time Festivals, weddings, fundraisers, Christmas celebrations, church services and special events.

Jody Marshall, a native of the Washington, D.C. area, grew up in a musical family. Enchanted by the sound and visual appeal of the hammered dulcimer, she developed a passion for the instrument and was soon playing everything from traditional jigs and reels to Mozart to the Beatles and beyond. Her performance credits include the White House, the Kennedy Center, and Wolf Trap’s Filene Center for the Performing Arts.

Jody was a founding member of the popular folk trios, Ironweed and MoonFire, and also performed extensively with the award-winning ensemble, Connemara. She is also a popular dulcimer teacher, and has been on the faculty of many festivals and arts workshops across the nation and overseas, including Kentucky Music Week and Kentucky Music Winter Weekend.

The Washington Post describes Jody’s music as “lovely, lively, and shimmering.” She has several recordings to her credit, and is also the author of a book of Christmas music for the hammered dulcimer, as well as two books featuring dulcimer duets.

For more information, visit www.jodymarshall.net.

Don Pedi was born into a musical family in Chelsea Massachusetts. On weekends, his grandfather, who died before Don was born, would close his barber shop for business, and open his home in the back as a gathering place for family and friends to share homemade food, fellowship and live music. Don's grandfather played guitar, mandolin and banjo. Don's uncle Frank made his living singing and playing music. Another gifted singer is Don's dad. He'll burst into song at the drop of a hat.

To Don the sound of the dulcimer proved most alluring. In a conversation with Richard Farina, Don was convinced that someday he would get himself a dulcimer and play it. Contemporary performers like Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Patrick Sky, Joan Baez and others attracted Don to the Newport Folk Festival. While there he was exposed to traditional musicians like Frank Proffitt, Doc Watson, Mississippi John Hurt, Almeda Riddle and such that where a major influence on his musical tastes. By 1966 Don was traveling a lot. With Cambridge as a base, he lived for various periods of time in different parts of the country. In 1973, while living in the Colorado Rockies, Don met Tad Wright and Keith Zimmerman, a couple of musicians from Asheville, NC. After hearing Don play, they invited him to join them. He did, and they piled into Tad's 1969 Volkswagen mini-van and drove to North Carolina.

Martin Rollins has worked extensively as a visual artist / educator for the Kentucky Arts Council’s Artist-in-Residence program, The Speed Art Museum, The Asia Institute Crane House, The Kentucky Center, and Jefferson Community and Technical College. While most know Martin’s landscapes and cityscapes in oil pastels, he also works in watercolor and other media as well.

Steve Smith, from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, has been a professional musician since 1965. He is an ASCAP award-winning songwriter, fingerstyle guitarist, old-time banjo and ukulele player. Steve lived and performed professionally with wife Ruth in Hawaii for 15 years (1975-1990). It was there he learned ukulele the Hawaiian way. His uke repertoire includes Hawaiian language, Hapa Haole (English lyrics with a sprinkling of Hawaiian words), and modern American popular music. He teaches workshops nationally at festivals and folk schools on ukulele, guitar, clawhammer banjo, recording, songwriting, copyrights & publishing, live sound reinforcement, and performing techniques. He performs and records with wife Ruth in the Acoustic Americana duo Steve & Ruth Smith. www.steveandruth.com

Tip Jar: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/SteveandRuthSmith

I was born and raised around music all of my life.  My grandpa was a minister in a little country church in West Central Illinois where my grandma and grandpa’s sisters played in church.  My grandma taught my dad to play the dulcimer and my dad taught me.  All my siblings played other stringed instruments, and I was fortunate being the youngest of five kids for them to teach me their instruments.

Over the years, I have played with many professional and not so professional musicians, but good people.  I was like a sponge.  I couldn’t get enough.  

I’ve won numerous awards at performing, building hammered dulcimers, and teaching the hammered dulcimer.

I started composing music in the 1960’s, and my first tune that I wrote was for my dad, “59 String Stomp.”  Since the Covid, I’m working on #42.

Thanks to my wife, Ann, who has supported me and my music, our daughter, Monica, family and numerous friends make me who I am.  I’m forever grateful to have you carry on my heritage.  

Thank you everyone and enjoy.

Bill Robinson

Award-winning recording artist, journalist and critically-acclaimed powerhouse vocalist, Susie Glaze has been called by Bluegrass Unlimited "...an important voice on the California Bluegrass scene" and by Roz Larman of KPFK’s Folkscene “…one of the most beautiful voices in bluegrass and folk music today.” A native Tennessean, Susie appeared on Broadway in Roger Miller's "Big River” and in California her work with Folk, Bluegrass and Americana production includes performing, recording, education, advocacy and journalism. "A flat-out superb vocalist... Glaze delivers warm, amber-toned vocals that explore the psychic depth of a lyric with deft acuity and technical perfection." LA Weekly. Susie co-produced the tribute show “Singing the Moon Up: The Voice of Jean Ritchie” in 2005 featuring Ritchie sons Jon and Peter Pickow, and in 2015 Susie was honored to be included on the Compass Records tribute album "Dear Jean - Artists Celebrate Jean Ritchie" alongside such artists as Judy Collins, Pete Seeger, Janis Ian, Tim O'Brien, John McCutcheon, Robin and Linda Williams and many more. "...with people like this to trust, my music will go on living, and soaring. And so will I.” Jean Ritchie

www.susieglaze.com

Ruth Smith

Hammered Dulcimer

A native North Carolinian, Ruth fell in love the with sound of the hammered dulcimer at an apple festival in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her many years of classical training give her a special touch, and she is recognized for her delicate, expressive style. Dirty Linen Folk & World Music Magazine says “Ruth Smith's touch on the hammered dulcimer is absolutely magical, with exquisite phrasing, highlighting the range of the instrument especially on her own pieces.” Ruth enjoys composing music especially for the hammered dulcimer and her compositions have been featured on NPR's All Songs Considered, SiriusXM Satellite Radio, PBS TV's Song of the Mountains and in Dulcimer Players News. A popular instructor, she teaches hammered dulcimer workshops at festivals and folk schools throughout the country and is the author of From Heart to Hands and Touch of Grace, hammered dulcimer instructional books of her compositions and arrangements.

www.steveandruth.com

Tip Jar: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/SteveandRuthSmith