Laurie Lewis
& Nina Gerber

You can't measure Laurie Lewis's 30-year career with the usual commercial yardsticks. She has won a Grammy ("True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe," 1997), and twice been named Female Vocalist of the Year by the IBMA.

If you listen down the backroads of acoustic Americana you'll soon realize this soft-spoken, sweet-singing California fiddler, singer and songwriter is something very special. "Judging by the respect she has among fans and peers in the industry," says IBMA executive director Dan Hays, "Laurie is one of the pre-eminent bluegrass and Americana artists of our time. She spreads her talent over several genres - bluegrass, folk, country - and with the recognition she has within all those fields, I would certainly say she's one of the top five female artists of the last 30 years. And she continues to make great music."

Laurie fell in love with American folk music as a teenager, at the sunset of the '60s folk revival. It was the vastness, the realness, the melodicism, and welcoming accessibility that drew her. "Oh, it was so exciting," she says of the Berkeley Folk Festivals where she first caught the folk bug. "Every night there were concerts, and during the day you'd be in a eucalyptus grove listening to someone making music with nothing between you and them. Every day I'd hear something new, Doc Watson or the Greenbrier Boys. Something about it just invited me to start playing it." She began plunking out simple songs on the guitar, then the fiddle. After high school, she drifted away from the music, but always kept her fiddle under her bed, though she didn't know why. In her early 20s, she discovered the Bay Area bluegrass scene. To her, it was "like opening that door all over again. Here were all these people making music together, and I could immediately see myself as part of it. It woke up all that excitement I felt as a teenager, and I knew this was what I wanted to do with my life."

www.laurielewis.com

Nina Gerber
After carving a career out of what some might call the shadows, guitarist Nina Gerber is at last beginning to dare the light. Her first album as a leader, Not Before Noon, follows two decades which brought her to prominence without ever placing her name on the front of an album cover. Since her accompaniment of Kate Wolf first earned her recognition, her acute skills as performer, producer and arranger have continued to deepen. Her contributions to acoustic music have earned her a following as loyal as for the numerous high talents she has accompanied - proving the shadows equal to the spotlight in the creation of honest, powerful, and beautiful music. Nina has performed and/or recorded with: Nanci Griffith, Greg Brown, Lucy Kaplansky, Mollie O'Brien, Dave Alvin, Karla Bonoff, Ferron, Rosalie Sorrels, Barbara Higbie, John Gorka, Cheryl Wheeler, Terry Garthwaite, Tom Paxton, and many others.

www.ninagerber.com

Rita Hosking
& Cousin Jack

Kitchen tables, springs, loss, miners, mountains, culture clash, trailers, stray dogs, loggers, hope, forest fires—Rita Hosking's country-folk music is this and more, and always fierce and lovely. Her delivery is, to put it simply, intense. "From the first time I heard Rita sing, her voice gripped me and did not let go," (Joe Craven.)

That voice, called a "soulful howl from the mountains" (California Bluegrass Association) is calling attention around the country---"What? California girls don't sing like that!!?" But Rita, called "the real thing" by CA acoustic music fans, will tell you about her upbringing in rural Shasta County, and the old-time band of seasoned mountain characters that took her under their wings. "This California girl comes by her mountain-music sensibility with true authenticity, with original songs deeply rooted in her family's frontier experience," (Dan Ruby, FestivalPreview.com.) A descendant of Cornish miners who sang in the mines, Rita grew up with deep regard for folk music and the power of the voice.

Rita's songs have been lauded for story and sense of place, and her performances praised for capturing the audience. Honors include winner of the '08 Dave Carter Memorial Songwriting Contest at the Sisters Folk Festival, finalist for the '09 Telluride Troubadour Contest, and others as well. She has played her songs for appreciative listeners at the Strawberry Music Festival, Kate Wolf Music Festival, and many more. Rita points out that she likes to "get to the heart of the matter." As with a mystic, this means a loaded and stunning, yet gentle and compassionate delivery. As Craven adds, "Rita's messages are immediate yet patient and her quiet conviction most strong."

Come Sunrise, a collection of 11 original songs and Rita's third album, was released in June of 2009. Recorded in Austin, Texas with producer and guitarist Rich Brotherton (Robert Earl Keen, Caroline Herring,) Come Sunrise launches Rita onto the national Americana scene with players such as Brotherton himself, Lloyd Maines, Warren Hood, Glenn Fukunaga, and many more. In addition to her '07 Silver Stream and '05 Are You Ready? featuring members of her band "Cousin Jack," Come Sunrise completes a collection of well received recordings.

Rita performs in variable configurations including duo or solo, and often as a quartet called "Rita Hosking and Cousin Jack," –Rita on guitar, Sean Feder on banjo, dobro, bass and guitar, Andy Lentz on fiddle, and Bill Dakin on bass and guitar.

www.ritahosking.com