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Lineup
2025 Lineup
Bailey Mountain Cloggers
BMC were organized in 1974 by students at Mars Hill University (then college). The Bailey Mountain name is derived from the mountain adjacent to the college campus. This team carries on the tradition from an older championship team in Mars Hill called Bailey Mountain “Square” Dance Team. Today, the students who comprise the dance company, 25+ from 9 different states, come from various dance traditions, representing a number of ethnic and religious backgrounds. The Bailey Mountain Cloggers serve as ambassadors of goodwill for the college and the folk dance traditions of the Southern Mountains. During their 45-year history, the Bailey Mountain Cloggers have won 27 National Titles and performed throughout the United States and internationally in Canada, Mexico, England, Scotland, Austria, Ireland, Palma Mallorca Spain, Germany, England, France, Greece, Poland, Czech Republic, Colombia, and the Netherlands.The Bailey Mountain Cloggers Folk Dance Company has established a national and international reputation for American clog dance excellence.
Bandana Rhythm
Rhiannon Ramsey is an eighth generation Madison County native. She began her musical journey at the age of six when she began taking fiddle lessons from Natalya Weinstein of Zoe and Cloyd. At the age of seven she became a student of Master Fiddler Arvil Freeman. He became her teacher, mentor, and dear friend. His long bow fiddle style is often recognized by others when she plays. Rhiannon made her debut at Shindig on the Green at the age of eight. She has continued to be a regular at Shindig on the Green, The Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, and The Bascom Lamar Lunsford Festival. Rhiannon has shared the stage with many amazing musicians while being a member of several bands including Little Creek, Rhiannon and the Relics, Bandana Rhythm, and The Stoney Creek Boys. Rhiannon’s fiddling can be heard on the documentary, The Spirit Still Moves Them, and on newly released singles from Dasher. Rhiannon continues to pass down the Appalachian music traditions shared with her as she teaches, performs, and records today.
Roger Howell & Friends
Roger Howell has had a life-long passion for mountain music. He grew up near Mars Hill, on Banjo Branch, surrounded by the music of older neighbors who played traditional banjo and fiddle tunes like generations before them. He first began to play the guitar at age ten, with the banjo coming a bit later and eventually the fiddle in his mid-teens. Roger developed a keen interest in the regional mountain music of the Madison County area, picking up licks and developing his fluid fiddle style from mentors like Tommy Hunter and Woodrow Boone. He is known these days as a “Walking Encyclopedia” of fiddle tunes. In 2017, Roger finished recording almost 700 tunes from memory—a “Memory Collection,” which is housed in the Ramsey Center’s Southern Appalachian Archives. In 2015, the North Carolina Folklore Society honored Roger with the prestigious Brown-Hudson Folklore Award for his work in preserving and celebrating regional music traditions.
Lonesome Mountain Ears
Lonesome Mountain Ears is spearheaded by MHU’s own Gary Spence, a long-time teacher of guitar and banjo. In addition to Gary, the band is made up of Lora Sepion, Mike Bradley, Jack Womack, and Martin Beckman.
Analo Phillips
Analo Phillips was born and raised and still lives in the Laurel section of Madison County, North Carolina. He learned ballads and hymns from the old folks growing up, and is a veritable encyclopedia of local history and genealogy. View a video about Analo here.
Aaron Ratcliffe
Aaron Ratcliffe hails from Big Stomp Mountain in Haywood County, NC where his family has lived for seven generations. He began as dancing as a youth at events such as the Waynesville Street Dances, Asheville’s Shindig on the Green and The Mountain Dance and Folk Festival. Since 2005 he has called old-time square dances for public and private events across the Southeast, including the International Bluegrass Music Association Wide Open Bluegrass Festival in Raleigh, NC and The Appalachian State Fiddlers Convention in Boone, NC. He has been an organizer for NC Squares, a monthly traditional old time square dance in Chapel Hill/Durham, NC since 2007. He danced with the Cane Creek Cloggers of Chapel Hill, NC from 2003 – 2011, performing and teaching dance workshops across the Southeast including a 2006 showcase with the NC Symphony. As a solo dancer, he has performed at the NC Museum of Art in 2010, taught classes at Ninth Street Dance in Durham, NC and won prizes for flatfoot dancing at fiddlers’ conventions in NC, TN, and VA.
When he is not calling, Aaron enjoys busting down on hot dance tunes on fiddle, banjo, guitar or mandolin with many groups across NC and VA. Most recently, you can regularly find him playing banjo with The Little Stony Nighthawks.
Carol Rifkin & Friends
Carol’s music, dance and stories are engaging, filled with fiddle tunes and songs with themes more likely to reference hobos, moonshine, or the Great Depression than current events. She’s danced with Doc and Merle Watson (“That’s the best dancin’ I ever heard,” said Doc), Taj Mahal, toured with the early Green Grass Cloggers, recorded with Dick Tarrier, Roger Howell, David Holt, her fiddle mentor Arvil Freeman, appears in the movie “Songcatcher” and the British TV production “Down Home Appalachia to Nashville” with Tommy Jarrell and Aly Bain. Her soaring voice is uniquely recognizable on stage and radio (WNCW/WSIF/This Old Porch) and more than 1,000 of her stories about mountain culture have been published in newspapers and magazines. With a lifelong love of roots music, fiddle contests and festivals, she co-founded and was Assistant Producer of LEAF. Recipient of two Bascom Lamar Lunsford awards for contributions to mountain culture (2013, 2016), she’s included in the 2023 Smithsonian exhibit “I’ve Endured, Women in Old Time Music.” At home she coordinates JAM kids of Henderson Co., teaches, plays, calls dances, hosts a weekly session 6-8 Wednesdays at Trailside Brewing and likes to kayak or run with Bud the Rocket Dog.
https://frenchbroadvalleymusic.org/jam-kids/
John Roten
Roten has been the Master of Ceremonies at the Lunsford Festival for many years. He has also worn many hats with iHeartMedia but most often can be seen around the region in one his trademark cowboy hats. John was the host of the very popular Kiss Country Classics program, heard Sunday mornings from 8 until noon on 99.9 Kiss Country in Asheville, and was the host of Sunday morning’s WESC Country Classics in Greenville, South Carolina. Roten grew up in Western North Carolina and knows the regions and the people that live in these wonderful mountains.
Sourwood Ridge with Brandon Johnson
Three Western North Carolina string band veterans make up Sourwood Ridge: Craig Bannerman (bass, vocals), Troy Harrison (banjo, guitar, mandolin, vocals), and Scott Owenby (guitar, mandolin, vocals). Each has an extensive musical history and a true love of performing traditional mountain music. They are regular performers in Western North Carolina and beyond.