Cover: $20.00/$18.00 members/$25 day of show

Come hear Acoustic Chicago Blues at its finest! Fiddle and Bow is proud to present a rare acoustic concert by Muddy Waters’ guitar player, Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin, along with the talented Tad Walters. Bob recently performed the 40th Anniversary “Last Waltz” Tour across the nation. He performs regularly throughout the world, with very few appearances in The Triad.

Welcome to the Release Party for “This Guitar and Tonight,” Bob Margolin’s first ever acoustic CD.

“THIS GUITAR AND TONIGHT is my first all-acoustic album. Inspired by my 1935 parlor guitar, Muddy Waters (known for his electric playing) telling me 40 years ago he actually preferred acoustic guitar, and Amy Brat’s idea that an all-acoustic album would be a fresh adventure, this album made itself. New original songs came easy. My guests on one song each are harp master Bob Corritore and guitar virtuoso Jimmy Vivino. The recording approach is pure, the music sounds right in front of you, no added sugar. No artificial ingredients.”— Bob Margolin, multi-Blues Music Award Winner.

More from Bob:  “I can’t wait to play in the intimate acoustic style for my old and new friends here. I’ve been playing here since 1978, and I don’t think I ever did that without an electric guitar before. Let’s go deep!”

About Bob Margolin:

Boston native Bob Margolin was born in 1949, but now is a neighbor, living in Guilford County. Inspired by Chuck Berry, he started playing guitar at age 15 and immediately started performing in local rock and blues bands. Margolin was hired by Muddy Waters in 1973.

Muddy’s band toured the world and jammed with many great blues and rock musicians, “but the biggest thrill was playing Muddy’s Blues with him.”  Muddy brought Margolin with him to special shows and recordings, when he sometimes didn’t use his whole band, to give him a familiar sound when working with other musicians. In 1975, they recorded Grammy Award-winning “Muddy Waters Woodstock Album”, Muddy’s last for Chess Records, which featured Paul Butterfield, and Levon Helm and Garth Hudson from The Band. In ‘76, Muddy brought Margolin with him to San Francisco to perform at The Band’s “Last Waltz” concert. Martin Scorsese filmed the concert for the classic film. “As it happened, only one camera was operating during our performance, zooming in or out, and since I was standing right next to Muddy, I was in every shot while he sang a powerful ‘Mannish Boy.’”  Margolin also played on the four albums that Muddy recorded for Blue Sky Records, which were produced by Johnny Winter, and with Johnny on his Nothin’ But The Blues album. Three of those albums won Grammy Awards.

Margolin left Muddy’s band in 1980 and formed his own band. He relocated to Washington, DC then Blacksburg, Virginia — eventually winding up North Carolina in 1989. “All through the ‘80s I ran up and down the highways, mostly in Virginia and North Carolina. I was able to make a living without the pressures of the music business, and didn’t even feel any need to release an album. I was playing most nights with total musical freedom and no commercial considerations.”  Periodically during those years, Margolin played a few high profile gigs — He appeared at the 1984 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, joining The Fabulous Thunderbirds for a tribute to Muddy Waters (with Etta James singing, and Taj Mahal and James Cotton opening). His own band opened shows for Stevie Ray Vaughan, George Thorogood, Johnny Winter, and The T-Birds.

By the end of the ‘80s, the blues scene was going through big changes. “I realized that to continue making a living playing Blues, I would have to record and get back out on the worldwide Blues Scene and tour more widely.”  In 1989, he recorded his first solo album “The Old School” for Powerhouse Records, owned by DC-based guitar wizard Tom Principato. Margolin’s second album for Powerhouse, “Chicago Blues”, released in ‘91, featured songs from three different recording sessions. In 1993, Margolin signed with Alligator Records and released his third solo album, Down In The Alley. “This was certainly the biggest ‘break’ I’d had in music since Muddy took me into his band twenty years before”. At the same time, he signed with Piedmont Talent, a Blues booking agency based in Charlotte, NC. The new album and Piedmont’s strong booking took Margolin all over the world and helped to reconnect him with an international Blues audience.  By 1994, Margolin was touring hard and playing at many of the major blues festivals during the summer season. In August and September of that year, The Muddy Waters Tribute Band, featuring musicians who were in Muddy’s band when he was, went on a national tour with B.B. King, Dr. John, and Little Feat. In December of that year, they cut an album featuring the band and special guests from the Rock and Blues worlds. “You Gonna Miss Me, a Tribute to Muddy Waters” on Telarc Records was nominated for a Grammy Award in ‘96. Margolin released his second album for Alligator, “My Blues and My Guitar” in 1995 followed by 1997’s “Up & In”. Margolin appeared on a Kennedy Center Tribute to Muddy Waters in 1997, which featured Buddy Guy, Koko Taylor, John Hiatt, G.E. Smith, Peter Wolf, Nick Gravenites, Keb’ Mo’, Big Bill Morganfield, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Charlie Musselwhite, Barry Goldberg, and Johnnie Johnson. A DVD, “A Tribute to Muddy Waters, King of the Blues”, was released the next year. Also in ’97, Margolin scripted and was featured in an instructional video, “Muddy Waters’ Guitar Style” for Starlicks Video. He released “Hold Me To It” on Blind Pig Records (1999) and “The Bob Margolin All-Star Blues Jam” in 2003 for Telarc. Margolin’s a founding partner in the VizzTone Label Group (formed in 2007) and has previously released 2 albums through the VizzTone Label – 2007’s “In North Carolina” and 2012’s collaboration with Mike Sponza “Blues Around The World”.

In 2016, Bob won two Blues Blast Magazine Awards, one as Best Male Blues Artist, and one for Best Traditional Blues Album for his new album, “My Road.”  In 2013, Bob was nominated for The Blues Foundation’s Blues Music Award for Traditional Male Blues Artist. He has won Blues Music Awards for guitar in 2008 and 2005.

Bob Margolin has played on several Grammy-winning recordings, won numerous W.C. Handy/Blues Music Awards for his playing and is a KBA Award recipient for Journalism. [In the early ’90s, Margolin began a second career as a music writer. In 2011, he released an eBook featuring the best of his writing — “Steady Rollin’ – Blues Stories, Snapshots, (Intentional) Blues Fiction.] He’s produced albums for numerous artists including Muddy’s son Big Bill Morganfield, Candye Kane, Pinetop Perkins, Mac Arnold, Ann Rabson and produced and consulted on reissues of Muddy Waters’ recordings for the Blue Sky Label for Sony/Legacy.

About Tad Walters:

Tad Walter has been playing with Bob for around 25 years, off and on. He plays guitar, harmonica, and sings Blues, Rock and Roll, Soul, Jazz, and some Country.

Born in Canton, Ohio, and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, Tad Walters began playing the guitar at age 12. As he was developing his guitar skill, Tad picked up the harmonica a couple years later at fourteen. He was influenced by the likes of Blind Boy Fuller, Robert Lockwood, Charlie Patton, Robert Nighthawk, and John Jackson, among others, and began his professional music career with the Bob Margolin Band in 1996. In that four year period he traveled the world with the band and played with musicians like Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, Billy Boy Arnold, Cary Bell, and others. In 2001, Tad joined the Big Bill Morganfield band and stayed until 2004. Tad is now teaching guitar and harmonica lessons and concentrating on Piedmont blues and old-time jazz with Dave Andrews.

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Congratulations, Bob Margolin on  your recent nomination for Best Acoustic Blues album by Blues Foundation!

Admission in FREE!

The Fiddle & Bow Society is again hosting a music stage at this years Art in the Arboretum in Greensboro with the best of folk music in Greensboro.

A juried art and fine craft event featuring fifty artists from throughout the region exhibiting in an outdoor gallery. Also featuring entertainment on three stages, interactive art activities, Art Bark, monarch butterfly exhibit, honey bee exhibit, gardening activities for children, and two food courts. Two local garden centers will also be participating with plants available for sale.

Greensboro Arboretum
401 Ashland Drive

Visit the Art in the Arboretum Web Site

Cover: $16.00/$14.00 members

Fiddle and Bow goes ‘outside the box’ to proudly present an evening of original, irreverent, hilarious holiday music, along with a selection of Piedmont Songbag favorites, featuring Don Morgan, Rebekah Raker, Cliff Greeson & Sam Frazier. This show always sells out and people still beg to get in! If you enjoy intelligent humor that makes light of EVERYTHING, you’ll love this show!

Piedmont Songbag is both the name of a band and a highly anticipated longtime tradition in Greensboro. Every December this band takes Greensboro by storm! Their ONE annual musical and vaudevillian performance has become part of Greensboro’s holiday season and creative lore. Members Sam Frazier and Don Morgan have written a host of funny holiday songs, and those tunes have kept hordes of folks looking forward to Piedmont Songbag’s holiday show every year.

The holiday season is a time of high expectations for reform of some of the worst aspects of human behavior. Piedmont Songbag believes “nothing invokes love and tolerance like wild commercial excess and the constant replay of simple melodies that have the peculiar ability to infest the brain and repeat themselves endlessly.” In an effort to infuse sanity (or more insanity) into the holiday season, the Piedmont Songbag Tower of Song enjoys creating merriment while poking fun at the holiday season with their “Holiday Songbag of Beloved Irregular Standards.” Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays in song almost every year since 1980!

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Cover: $20.00/$18.00 members

“There’s been no higher pleasure for us or our audience than hearing The Williamson Brothers Band perform.”

PLEASE NOTE: The Williamson Brothers concert will be at a new location in Winston-Salem: Bib’s Downtown, 675 W. Fifth St.

Come hear N.C. legends Tony and Gary Williamson, Jim Watson, Don Wright, and Tatiana Hargreaves (The Williamson Brothers Bluegrass Band) present an evening of dazzling Bluegrass while you enjoy some BBQ and other smoked delicacies at Bib’s Downtown.

For half a century, Tony and Gary Williamson have delighted audiences all over the world with their love of music, deep connection to their roots and a wonderful knowledge of music traditions. They grew up in a family of farmers, woodworkers and musicians that go back nine generations in Piedmont North Carolina. As teenagers, they were named “World Champions” at Union Grove, North Carolina in 1969. On stage and/or in the studio, they have worked alongside Doc Watson, Ralph Stanley, Bobby Hicks, Alison Krauss, Tony Rice, Vassar Clements and many others. The International Bluegrass Music Association recognized them with “Recorded Event of the Year” in 1994, and more recently, they were awarded lifetime achievement awards: Gary “Order of the Longleaf Pine (2010)” and Tony “North Carolina Heritage Award in 2018”.

Their duets feature smooth, lilting vocal harmonies with sparkling mandolin and guitar accompaniment. David Ryoko of the Chicago Tribune summed it up back in 2001: “The Williamson Brothers dazzle without ever lapsing into flashiness.”

“There’s been no higher pleasure for us or our audience than hearing The Williamson Brothers Band perform. We knew that Tony is a mandolin magician, but we weren’t prepared for the wondrous singing; we’ve heard no finer voice than Gary Williamson, and the brother harmonies are astonishingly beautiful. They evoke the deep historical roots of the finest traditional music, a time before internet, before TV, before radio and even before recorded music. The happy songs are often tinged with sadness, but the sad songs are always suffused with hope. Music like this is one of the joys in this imperfect world, and Tony and Gary and their All-Star band deliver the joy.” — Jim Roberts and Deborah Jakubs, Learned Place Concerts, Durham, NC

Jim Watson was a founding member of the Red Clay Ramblers, known for his paint-peeling vocals and instrumental skills on mandolin, guitar, and bass. After leaving the Ramblers he toured with Robin & Linda Williams as a member of their Fine Group, which also featured Chris Brashear. A master of old-time and bluegrass music, he still performs regularly with NC’s finest musicians.

Tatiana Hargreaves is a rapidly rising legend in N.C. Over the past eight years, Tatiana Hargreaves has been on the forefront of an up and coming generation of old time, bluegrass and new acoustic musicians. She has toured with musicians such as Dave Rawlings, Gillian Welch, Laurie Lewis, Darol Anger, and Bruce Molsky. From placing first at the Clifftop Appalachian Fiddle Contest, to her bluegrass fiddling on Laurie Lewis’ GRAMMY-nominated album The Hazel And Alice Sessions, Hargreaves shows a musical fluency that flows between old time and bluegrass worlds with ease. She currently tours with banjo extraordinaire Allison de Groot and teaches bluegrass fiddle at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

“A wonderful and talented presence on the old-time and bluegrass music scene, Tatiana brings to all of her music (besides amazing chops) a true curiosity, an understanding and appreciation for the breadth and depth of the well from which she draws—and the possibilities of who knows what might be. A fine young player and singer—and friend. ”
— ALICE GERRARD

Don Wright, a player of the banjo and guitar (as well being a dentist) from Eden, has performed and recorded with musicians of the highest skill levels.

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Cover: $22.00/$20.00 members/$25 at the door

“He’s my favorite part of Americana music” – Ketch Secor, Old Crow Medicine Show

“Jim Lauderdale is a consummate entertainer, a sharp dressed man as well, a terrific songwriter and a great singer.“– George Strait

“Jim Lauderdale could easily be called a renaissance man. He’s a great singer, great guitar player and there’s no way you could miss his work as a songwriter.” – Ricky Skaggs

Jim is having a busy year.  He hosted MerleFest, is hosting the IBMA Festival this year in September, and is performing at and emceeing at The Americana Music Awards.

Jim Lauderdale is a 2-time Grammy winning Americana icon, a singer-songwriter whose unmistakable rhinestone-incrusted silhouette has been a symbol for creative integrity and prolificacy for thirty-one albums over decades of recording. He’s an A-list Nashville songwriter whose songs have ruled the country charts while recording an eclectic catalogue of albums that run the gamut of American roots styles. His prolific streak of releases continues in 2019 with his new album ‘From Another World’.

The twelve songs contained within, all written or co-written by Jim, are his antidote to the anger, divisiveness of today’s world, a world full of bad news and folks yelling at each other on CNN. This is music from another world, a world of empathy, love, forgiveness and humility. Where people find freedom through togetherness, where they struggle to change for the better, where country music still cries with the sound of pedal steel guitar and psychedelic-tinged lyrics flow through aching indelible melodies.

From the start of his career, Jim Lauderdale has been creating his own musical world. Too expansive, eclectic and creatively curious to fit into any prescribed genre boxes, he innovated what is now called Americana music, long before there was a term for it. Everything about the man and his music is classic and timeless, but he’s a total original. The McCartney-esque melodies sung in his aching high lonesome tenor, the fiercely authentic bluegrass songs with mind-expanding psychedelic lyrics… nothing about Jim’s music can be reduced to a single influence, and no other songwriter would fuse these classic strains of tune-craft into such unexpected but immediately satisfying combinations.

“A long time ago, I decided that with each record, I would ignore the categories people tried to put me into and just make the music that was in my heart,” Lauderdale explains. “This album is about the search for connection, love and understanding between people, about finding empathy in a world where it feels like folks are more and more at loggerheads. When the world outside your window feels too tough to bear, I hope you’ll step into the world we’ve created here.”

“When I write or play or get into the studio, it feels like it’s all coming together for me – that this is what I’m here to do. No matter what is going on in the rest of my life, how hard things sometimes get, I can leave behind this three and a half minute song and that makes it all worthwhile.”

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Cover: $18.00/$16.00 members

David Greely takes the swampy syncopations of Cajun music and its renaissance French dialect to new level of artistry. In solo acoustic performance, he sounds like two fiddles, with both melody and rhythm layered in accompaniment to his singing. His concerts embrace all the aspects of his heritage that a fiddle and voice can reach- ancient ballads, cane field blues, yearning waltzes and fiery two steps. He melds his ancestral legacy with his own adroit compositions and uses it all to tell the story of how these people and their music came to be.

Born in Baton Rouge of Cajun and Irish ancestry, David learned Cajun music on dance hall stages throughout South Louisiana, in the archives of Cajun and Creole music at the University of Louisiana, and from his apprenticeship to Cajun fiddle master and National Heritage Fellow Dewey Balfa. As a founding member of Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, David toured folk festivals worldwide for 23 years and was nominated for four Grammy Awards. He has received the Louisiana Artist Fellowship Award for Folklife Performance.

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Cover: $18.00/$16.00 members

Vance exploded onto the scene in the early 90’s, with buzz spreading quickly. Who was this multicultural arts teacher knocking them dead at open mics? After opening Shawn Colvin’s 1992 Fat City tour, he took much of America by storm and by surprise. “With the voice of an angel, the wit of a devil, and the guitar playing of a god, it was enough to earn him that rarity: an encore for  an opener,” wrote the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in its review of a show from the Colvin tour.

With ten critically acclaimed albums, Vance Gilbert continues to refine his unlikely union of humor, virtuosity, and the unexpected. Whether with classic, original songwriting or ageless interpretations of covers, his is a presentation steeped in deep humanism and bravery, stunning artistry and soul, and contagious, unbridled joy. Vance is now on tour with his brand new CD, “BaD Dog Buffet”.

Like all great artists, Vance truly happens live. In fact he developed his reputation with his jawdropping, diverse, funny, devastating, and gorgeous live performances. Arlo Guthrie, Anita Baker, the late George Carlin have all requested Vance to be added to their bills.

Vance followed with three acclaimed albums for the Rounder/Philo label—Edgewise (1994), Fugitives (1995), and Shaking Off Gravity (1998). Then, Somerville Live (2000), was lionized by the Boston Globe as the disc “young songwriters should study the way law students cram for bar exams,” and New York’s Town and Village called One Thru Fourteen (2002), “lively, eclectic, electrifying and transcending.”

Gilbert then released a duo album with his friend Ellis Paul, entitled Side Of The Road (2003). The Boston Globe described it as “the songwriter’s most compelling work; literate, heartfelt, rippling…emotionally resonant.” The Globe placed the album on its Top 10 list that year.

Gilbert only continued on with three more albums, Angels, Castles, Covers (2006) displaying his vocal virtuosity, with sounds of Motown, the R&B of Al Green, and classic Joni Mitchell. Up On Rockfield (2008) just after a year and a half as support for George Carlin, and Old White Men.

Which brings us full circle to BaD Dog Buffet, the latest in a growing, glowing oeuvre and an evocative catalog created by a cornerstone acoustic artist.

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Cover: $18.00/$16.00 members

Matt Nakoa grew up on a small goat farm in Smyrna, NY and began composing music as a teenager. Following a formative stint as a classical pianist, Matt won scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston. There he studied alongside soon-to-be Grammy winners St. Vincent and Esperanza Spaulding among others. After college, Matt toured with his band, The Fens, and eventually landed in New York City’s vibrant piano bar scene. Matt quickly became a star performer at Manhattan’s Brandy’s Piano Bar, with lines outside the door each Saturday night.

Matt’s first solo album, Light In The Dark (2012), is an eclectic pop opus. In contrast, A Dozen Other Loves (2014), explores a simple acoustic palette. This intimate collection has earned many songwriting awards, including a win at Kerrville Folk Festival’s prestigious New Folk Competition. Additionally, Matt’s piano music has received favorable reviews in publications including The New York Times, and his film scoring has been featured by Disney. Matt now tours internationally, recently performing at The White House, throughout India, and regularly with folk music icon Tom Rush.

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Cover: $18.00/$16.00 members

Riley Baugus represents the best of old time American banjo and song. His powerful singing voice and his expert musicianship place him squarely in the next generation of the quality American roots tradition.

Riley first came to music through his family. His father had left his roots in the mountains of North Carolina in the search for work, settling near Winston-Salem and bringing with him a love of old time music and a record collection that included, amongst others, the works of fellow North Carolinian Doc Watson, which touched the young Riley on a molecular level.

His family’s attendance at Regular Baptist church gave him early exposure to the unaccompanied singing that is a time-honored tradition for ballad singers throughout the Appalachians. Starting on the fiddle, Riley quickly moved on to the banjo, building his first instrument from scrap wood with his father.

With friend and neighbor, Kirk Sutphin, Riley began honing his musical skills. Together they visited elder traditional musicians throughout North Carolina and Virginia, learning the Round Peak style at the knee of National Heritage Award winner Tommy Jarrell and other traditional musicians of the area, including Dix Freeman, Chester McMillian and former Camp Creek Boys members Verlin Clifton and Paul Sutphin.

Over the years, whilst working as a weldor and a blacksmith by day, Riley played with many old time string bands, including the Old Hollow String Band and the Red Hots. His self-produced recording, “Life Of Riley” (Yodel-Ay-Hee, 2001), showcases his masterful, elegant banjo playing and his rich, raw boned singing voice.

One fateful day, Riley got a call from longtime friend and collaborator Dirk Powell. Dirk was involved in the music direction for the Academy Award-winning film “Cold Mountain” and had convinced the producers that they needed Civil War era banjos made in the Carolina hills, specifically Riley’s handmade banjos. They also needed an authentic acapella ballad singer for the voice of Pangle, played by Ethan Suplee. Riley put the hammer down on the anvil and didn’t look back. A whirlwind Hollywood experience ensued, culminating in a place on the star-studded “Great High Mountain” tour.

From there, Riley has made his own path, building in-demand instruments and performing at festivals all over the world. He made musical contributions to the Appalshop film, “Thoughts In The Presence of Fear”, and to a film by Erika Yeomans; “Grand Gorge: No God But Me”. He has worked with the Lonesome Sisters as producer and performer on their recording “Going Home Shoes”. Riley collaborated with Laurelyn Dossett and Preston Lane of Triad Stage on theatrical presentations featuring original and traditional southern Appalachian music.

His next recording, “Long Steel Rail” (Sugar Hill Records, 2006), produced by Tim O’Brien and Dirk Powell, appeared to critical acclaim, with Billboard Magazine heralding it as “..quintessential American old-time music. The instrumental component is impeccable, while Baugus’ vocals sound like they’ve been echoing through the Appalachian Mountains for about 150 years”.

In 2008, a call from T-Bone Burnett put Riley back in the studio in Nashville, this time as a contributor to the Grammy award winning Album of the Year, “Raising Sand”, the multi million selling album by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant. Two years later, Riley’s banjo playing was featured on Willie Nelson’s Grammy nominated recording “Country Music”.

Riley has taught at camps and festivals around the world, including the Augusta Heritage Festival and Augusta Old Time Week, Mars Hill College’s Blue Ridge Old Time Music Week, Midwest Banjo Camp in Lansing, MI, the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, WA and Sore Fingers Week in the UK.

When not teaching or building banjos, Riley can be found out on the road performing. He plays with the Dirk Powell Band and with Kirk Sutphin. He is a frequent guest of Polecat Creek and of Tim O’Brien with Dirk Powell. With Ira Bernstein, he presents the show “Appalachian Roots”, a unique showcase of Appalachian music and dance.

Riley makes his home near Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

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Cover: $22.00/$20.00 members

“You can’t do better than Randall Bramblett.” – Bonnie Raitt

Multi-instrumentalist Randall Bramblett is Southern rock Royalty. He may be known for playing on stage with rock’s legends like Bonnie Raitt, The Allman Brothers Band, Steve Winwood (16 years), The Band, Roger Glover, Gov’t Mule and Widespread Panic among others. And respected for his songwriting – he’s penned the title track for the Blind Boys of Alabama’s new Grammy Award winning album, adding to a long catalog of songs covered by Raitt, Gregg Allman, Bonnie Bramlett, Hot Tuna, Delbert McClinton, Bettye Lavette and more. But it’s Bramblett’s own career as frontman where his artistry is in full display.  Join us for this very special solo acoustic show, showcasing Randall’s smokey voice, soulful keyboard & guitar work [and saxophone] as he weaves his brilliant tapestry of literate, worldly wise songs.

“You can’t do better than Randall Bramblett.” Bonnie Raitt

“One of the South’s most lyrical and literate songwriters.” Rolling Stone

“Randall is in my opinion the most gifted & talented southern singer-songwriter musicians of the past several decades.”
Chuck Leavell (Rolling Stones, Allman Brothers)

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