Dwight Diller

     Dwight Diller is one of a handful of native West Virginia musicians actively engaged in preserving the traditional music of Pocohantas County and east central West Virginia. He grew up steeped in the mountain culture of central West Virginia; his ancestors were some of the earliest settlers of this region. Dwight's early interest in the old stories and music led him to seek out the old people in his home area who were the repositories of this tradition. This search eventually led to the release of their music and stories by the Library of Congress and Rounder Records. Now with over three decades of playing and almost as many years teaching the old music, Dwight has come into his own as an interpreter of his heritage. His music is always changing, always fresh, never parroted; it has the active ingredients that keep it in the spirit of the archaic feel of the music of the 19th century.

Richard Currey

     Born in the small town of Parkersburg, West Virginia, Currey is the author of Crossing Over: The Vietnam Stories, Fatal Light, The Wars of Heaven, and Lost Highway. A writer of exceptional range and versatility, Currey has published short fiction, poetry, essays, and investigative journalism. His fiction has been adapted for theatre, most recently in a new staging of Crossing Over: The Vietnam Stories now in workshop productions. The recipient of many awards, prizes, and fellowships, Currey's books have appeared in 11 languages, receiving critical comparisons to Joseph Conrad, Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Kerouac along the way.

Diane Jones

     Diane Jones started playing old-time music on the Appalachian Mountain dulcimer in 1980, after having played guitar for three years. After much visiting in the Southern Appalachians, she zeroed in on the old-time music being played in West Virginia. Diane had studied banjo and fiddle and continues to study with West Virginia masters Dwight Diller, Dave Bing, Melvin Wine, Gerry Milnes, and had also learned from the late Sarah Singleton and Glen Smith.

Doug Van Gundy

     Growing up in Elkins, West Virginia, Doug was exposed to a wide range of music through the Augusta Heritage Center at Davis and Elkins College. He abandoned playing rock and roll in 1993 to study fiddle with the late Mose Coffman of Greenbrier County, West Virginia through the National Endowment for the Humanities folk arts apprenticeship program of the Augusta Heritage Center. Since that time Doug has played throughout the northeast and upper Midwest with Dwight Diller, Melvin Wine, and in The Yahoes, with Paul Gartner and Pam Lund. Currently, Doug performs as a solo act and with Paul Gartner in the duo Born Old. Doug's playing is influenced by Mr. Coffman, the Hammons Family and Central-West Virginia fiddlers Wilson Douglas, Ward Jarvis and French Carpenter, and focuses on the fiddle styles and repertoire particular to east-central West Virginia. He has taught through the Augusta Heritage Workshops on numerous occasions as well as at other workshops in New Hampshire, Michigan, Massachusetts, New York and Canada. Doug has two recordings currently available, Born Old with banjo player Paul Gartner, and Two Far Gone with fellow fiddler Jake Krack. Doug's fiddling can also be heard on albums by Dwight Diller, Peter Kosky and Glen Simpson. His music has also been featured on Swedish public television, a commercial for ABC-TV, the Outdoor Life Network, and The Crook & Chase Show on the Nashville Network. He has performed at The Kennedy Center, The Oldsongs Festival, Hostos Community College of NYU in The Bronx, The Appalachian String Band Festival at Clifftop, WV and The Calliope Emerging Legends Concert Series in Pittsburgh, PA, among others. Doug and his wife Melissa live in Elkins, West Virginia.

Tim O'Brien

     Born in March, 1954, in Wheeling, West Virginia, Tim O'Brien grew up listening to big band and jazz music. His earliest musical memories included listening to Benny Goodman and Lawrence Welk. When still in his teens, he started listening to a local country music show that was recorded live at a local theater. He began attending tapings of the show, and there he saw performers liks Merle Haggard and Roger Miller. Soon, O'Brien began learning Scruggs' Style banjo from one of his girlfriend's psychiatrist father's patients. The patient was Roger Bland, a former member of Lester Flatt's band. He then restrung his father's old mandolin and began teaching himself how to play that instrument. He attended Colby College in Maine for one year, before moving first to Wyoming, then to Colorado. There, he formed the groundbreaking bluegrass group Hot Rize. While performing with Hot Rize, O'Brien met country singer Kathy Mattea, who later had hits with her versions of his songs. Soon after, O'Brien left Hot Rize to pursue a career as a solo singer/songwriter. After a failed attempt at recording an album for RCA, O'Brien eventually signed a deal with Sugar Hill Records in Nashville. His debut solo album, Odd Man was released in 1991. Hot Rize had a brief reunion in 1996, and have re-merged a few times since then. O'Brien has released 13 albums on Sugar Hill Records, and has received Grammy Awards and IBMA Awards for his incredible work.

Johnny Staats

      Johnny Staats first burst on the national scene in 2000 with his critically acclaimed release, "Wires & Wood". Johnny was profiled by sources ranging from People Magazine, The New York Yimes, CBS Evening News w/ Dan Rather, Paul Harvey, CNN and The Today Show, just to name a few. He and the Delivery Boys have appeared several times on WSM's Grand Ole Opry and continue to tour when Johnny is not driving the big brown truck for UPS. Johnny's command of the mandolin is astounding. His influences range from the traditional bluegrass sound of Bill Monroe to the sophisticated classics of Mozart, with jazz, swing and newgrass all mixed in with ultimate taste. Johnny resides in his native Jackson County, WV with his wife Lori and their two daughters, Jessica and Hannah.

Robert Shafer

     Robert Shafer has played guitar has played guitar professionally since graduating high school in 1981. He is a 2 time winner of the National Flatpicking Championship, held annually at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas. Robert has also held state guitar championships in Kentucky (3 times), Tennessee (twice), Ohio (twice) and Alabama. Robert has appeared on the Grand Ole Opry, Mountain Stage, BBC and has worked with many well known artists including Mark O'Connor, Mike Snider, Kenny Baker, Josh Graves and many others. In addition to being a first rate flatpicker, Robert is also an amazing electric guitarist. His 1997 release, "Hillbilly Fever" on the Upstart/Rounder label received rave reviews from Guitar Player magazine, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Vintage Guitar magazine and many other prominent publications. Robert's influences range from flatpicking pioneer Doc Watson to the legendary rockabilly guitarist, Danny Gatton. Robert currently resides near Charleston, WV.

David O'Dell

     A native of Spencer in Roane County, W.Va., David O'Dell grew up playing old-time music for square dances. He recorded his first album, "The Cedar Point String Band," when he was 17, with two neighbors, fiddler Franklin George, who became his greatest influence, and the late Bob Roark on guitar. At that early age, David already had won three awards from competing in the old-time banjo contests at Charleston's Vandalia Gathering. He lived temporarily in Knoxville, Tenn., while finishing his Ph.D. in soil science. While there, David played and sang music from the 1930s with some Knoxville-area friends and made one recording as "The New Roane County Ramblers." He moved back to West Virginia in 1996. David's playing can be heard at most traditional festivals in the Mountain State and he actively promotes traditional music. Now living and teaching college in Logan, W.Va., David O'Dell produces outstanding recordings by noted traditional West Virginia musicians, past, present and future. His smooth yet driving syle of clawhammer banjo has earned him several first place finishes at the Vandalia Gathering. He also is adept at fiddle, guitar and mountain dulcimer. In fact, he has won the state championship on dulcimer. David has played at all major venues across the state and in the South and has taught at many important workshops, including Cedar Lakes, Augusta Heritage, and Allegheny Echoes. In addition to his musical talents, David is a film maker, traveling through Appalachia to preserve old-time music on film.

Dave Bing

     Perhaps best known today as a founding member of Gandydancer, Dave Bing actually began playing fiddle some 30 years ago. He performs both as a solo artist and as a Gandydancer bandmate and also was a founding member of the legendary Bing Brothers. The Harmony, W.Va., resident is also well known and highly respected for his patient and effective teaching style. In addition to teaching at Allegheny Echoes, he has taught for many years at the Augusta Heritage Workshops, at the Cedar Lakes Workshops, and in England at the Gainesboro FOATMAD workshops. His playing and teaching draws from the many different styles of fiddling found in and around West Virginia and concentrates on applying bowing patterns for different dynamics. Dave has won most major fiddle contests in the Mountain State and has performed extensively in the U.S., Canada, and the British Isles. An influential figure in the states traditional music community, Dave has spent years tracking down the music of older musicians from central West Virginia.

Alan Freeman

     Although born and raised in the "hills" of East Flatbush, N.Y., Alan's transplanted roots in West Virginia go back 20 years. He is a self-taught mountain dulcimerist, first picking it up in 1976. His influences include Richard Farina, Mimi Baez, Norman and Nancy Blake, The Band, Glen Smith, J.P. Fraley and "big band" music. If high-energy/old-time/ragtime/Celtic/traditional/swing could be one word, it would barely describe Alan's style. Also a teacher, he has conducted dulcimer workshops at Ohio University, Appalachian State University and the Augusta Heritage Festival. His many championships include five times at the Galax Fiddler's Convention, multiple wins at the West Virginia State Folk Festival and seven consecutiuve Vandalia Gathering championships. A member of the "WWVA Jamboree USA" in Wheeling, W.Va., Alan is the only full-time dulcimerist on any major country music radio show.

Maggie Hammons

     Maggie hammons was born in September of 1899, the 6th of 10 children of Paris and Lottie Hammons. When Dwight Diller met her in 1969, maggie was in a fairly new situation. After spending some years in the Cleveland, Ohio, area with her husband Nathan Parker, she was a widow living in Marlinton WV with her widowed brother, Burl and sisters Emma and Ruie.

Maggie and her family had always been regarded as different by the people around them. Their archaic speech, dress, way of life, and the attitudes underlying that way of life were quite removed from the present day. In many ways...the Hammonses represented the last gasp of American pioneer culture.

Maggie did not have her own banjo, though there was a "household" banjo. Maggie also played Dwight's and Wayne's banjos. Maggie is holding Dwight's banjo on the cover of a Mel Bay banjo tab book. No one seems to know how Maggie learned to play...she often voiced the Hammons family belief that "anybody that really wants to play music can play it." It can only be assumed she picked it up on her own, as did her brothers, Burl and Sherman.

photograph of Maggie by Dwight Diller

Lee Hammons

     Lee Alfred Hammons was born in 1883 or 1886 and lived most of his life in Central West Virginia until 1980. In his 94 years, he worked as a logger, teamster and supervisor in the logging camps; a coal miner, a carpenter, cabinet maker, blacksmith and a contractor running a sawmill for the C&O railroad. He did what he needed to do to support his family of ten children.

Lee was proud to say that Edn Hammons (no relation) once told people that Lee was the only man who could tune a fiddle, and hand it to Edn so he could play without fixing the tuning. He was fond of "sacred songs", and these he played on the fiddle and banjo more often than the secular tunes he recorded. Lee stopped playing the banjo in 1923; Cumberland Gap is the last piece he learned. He learned it from Oce Cottrell. In 1923 Lee was supervising a logging crew and Oce had the only banjo in the camp. When Oce left, his banjo went with him, so that's when Lee quit playing. He did not start up again until 1969 at the age of 83.

photograph by Dwight Diller

Susan Lordi

     Susan Lordi's art reflects our relationships with people and the world around us. Her keen observation of the human form is further inspired by ballet, modern dance, nature, and her personal experiences with family and friends. These influences are revealed in her Willow Tree® sculptures, from which emotion is communicated through gestures only. Besides her work in sculpture, Susan has always loved making art with cloth. She has a Master of Fine Arts in Textile Design, and her fiber art has been exhibited internationally. A monograph of her art textiles has been published in the Portfolio Collection by Telos Art Publishing and she is featured in the book Art Textiles of the World: USA. Susan and her family live in Kansas City, Missouri.

Singleton Street

     Chuck Leyda (guitar) and Sherri Leyda (rhythm guitar) - also husband and wife - spent three years touring Renaissance Festivals around the country before meeting Jimmy Newkirk (bass) and the Celtic band The Banshees. During their three years together playing Irish music, Chuck, Sherri and Jimmy discovered a shared passion for bluegrass and old-time music. They soon became full blown cross-overs. Singleton Street made its MBOTMA debut at the Minnesota Bluegrass and Old-time Music Association (MBOTMA) Winter Weekend in March 2000. Craig Evans (frailin) joined the band a couple years later with his open-back banjo and clawhammer style, adding the ability to create the full bluegrass and old-time sounds. We especially enjoy playing Gospel sets which allow us to perform tight, three and four part harmonies, flatpicking guitar leads and banjo drive.