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William Elliott Whitmore

William Elliott Whitmore (born 1978) is an American blues singer and musician from Lee County, Iowa. He has recorded a number of albums released on Southern Records, and now is a member of the Anti Records family. His act consists mostly of playing the banjo or guitar while singing, though on occasion he performs a cappella. He has earned much acclaim from the folk, blues and alt-country communities

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Michelle Shocked

Michelle Shocked is a traveller, a troubadour, a 'picker-poet', as they say in Texas. As a young feminist, she left Texas to travel, Kerouac-style, and was caught up in Reagan-era grassroots politics. Her musical career was ignited by a bootleg recording made around a Kerrville Folk Festival campfire on a Sony walkman. Released in England as ‘The Texas Campfire Tapes’ without Shocked’s authority, its success abroad enticed Mercury Records to offer the newcomer a recording contract.

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Hugo Race

Melbourne-born multi-instrumentalist, producer, performer and songwriter Hugo Race is an eclectic and prolific artist who has lived and worked in the USA, UK, France, Germany and Italy since 1988. He was a founding member and powerful transient element of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds (1983), with whom he started working in the terminal stages of the legendary Birthday Party (he appears on five cds of the Seed's catalogue). In Melbourne he founded the Wreckery (1985) who went on to become on of Australia's seminal cult bands of the 80s, releasing with the White, Rampant, and Citadel labels.

A.A. Bondy

A.A. Bondy is an abbreviation of Auguste Arthur Bondy (aka Scott Bondy), the former lead singer of Birmingham, AL's Southern grunge darlings Verbena. After Verbena broke up in 2003, Bondy retreated to a Catskills home in Palenville in upstate New York and in time began writing songs again, emerging with a stripped-down indie folk sound. He recorded and mixed his debut album, "American Hearts", at a barn near his home, releasing the project in 2007 on the Superphonic imprint. The album was picked up by Fat Possum and re-released early in 2008.

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Justin Townes Earle

Justin Townes Earle walks the line between old time country and modern acoustic Indie music by breathing new life into Early country, blues and gospel forms. His first release, Yuma, was a stark and beautiful set of songs written while Earle was fresh out of rehab and is now re-released by Bloodshot Records, who have a further three albums on their catalogue. The Good Life, Midnight At the Movies (Americana award nominee) and the latest Harlem River Blues show Earle's characteristic charm, wit and rhythm to the forefront.

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The Low Anthem

The Low Anthem are a folk quartet (up until recently, a trio) from Providence, Rhode Island, United States. They formed in 2003 and consist of multi-instrumentalists Ben Miller, Jeff Prystowsky, Jocie Adams and Mat Davidson. From its hand silkscreened cover art to its meticulously crafted songs, The Low Anthem offers work meant to be held, savored, contemplated, and occasionally stomped along to.

Joe Pug

The day before his senior year as a playwright student at the University of North Carolina, Joe Pug sat down for a cup of coffee and had the clearest thought of his life: I am profoundly unhappy here. Then came the second clearest. Pug packed up his belongings and drove the longest route possible to Chicago. Working as a carpenter by day, the 23 year-old Pug spent nights playing the guitar he hadn't picked up since his teenage years.

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Hayes Carll

Joshua Hayes Carll, known as Hayes Carll, is a singer-songwriter from The Woodlands, Texas (a Houston suburb). He is currently signed to Lost Highway Records. If you haven’t already heard of Hayes Carll, you soon will. In the three years since his self-released second album, Little Rock became available, Carll has toured relentlessly in North America and abroad (performing over two hundred shows a year), founded a successful singer-songwriter music festival on the Gulf Coast of Texas, secured a record deal with Lost Highway Records...

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Steve Earle

Steve Earle (born January 17, 1955) is a singer-songwriter best known for his country music and rock 'n roll tinged "alt-country." He is also a published writer, a keen political activist (particularly in protesting against the death penalty in the U.S., as in his song "Ellis Unit One" from the movie Dead Man Walking), and has written and directed a play. Steve also had a small role as a recovering addict on the HBO television show "The Wire".

Kinky Friedman

Richard S. "Kinky" Friedman (born October 31 or November 1, 1944) is an American singer, songwriter, novelist, humorist, politician and former columnist for Texas Monthly who styles himself in the mold of popular American satirists Will Rogers and Mark Twain. He was one of two independent candidates in the 2006 election for the office of Governor of Texas. Receiving 12.6% of the vote, Friedman placed fourth in the five-person race.

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