2025 Festival Performers

Ada began performing at 12. Her first band Shiloh was the youngest ever placed with Houston's premier talent agency. Diane started playing guitar at her brother’s knee. After decades of sharing songs around campfires, she picked up the bass.

Now... joined by John - drums, and Roberta - fiddle, they're a smokin' hot band. Not to be missed.

Band Website: theadakhouryband.com

Like his father, Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong, Grammy-nominated bassist Ralphe Armstrong is an astonishing musical powerhouse. Ralphe began performing with his father by age 5. By age 13 he played with Smokey Robinson and the Miracles; by 16 he affiliated with Jean-Luc Ponty and Frank Zappa (which continued for many years). The original bassist in the Mahavishnu Orchestra with John MacLaughlin, Ralphe has performed and recorded with Aretha Franklin, James Carter, Sting, Roger Daltrey, Eminem, and many more artists in a wide variety of genres. Earlier this year, Ralphe was honored by his hometown and voted "Best Jazz Instrumentalist" at the Detroit Music Awards.

The trio's guitarist Ray Kamalay is a long-time professional musician who has shared the stage with many great performers, including Mark O'Connor, Doc Watson, Jethro Burns, Steve Goodman, Joel Mabus and Holly Near. Ray began performing with Howard and Ralphe in 1988 when the three of them formed the Howard Armstrong Trio.

Switching up violin and mandolin, John Reynolds is an old-time music whiz. Early on, as an ethnomusicology student at Kent State University, John was influenced by a number of traditional music masters including our own Howard Armstrong, whom John knew and performed with for decades.

This duo performed with Howard Armstrong for decades.

Lua is a cultural pollinator, bridging together musical styles from different continents and different centuries. The music is inspired by Mexican and Appalachian song forms, Jewish and Eastern European tonalities, baroque melodic ideas, & narrative storytelling approaches. They have created a repertoire that constitutes a new traditional music that is being shared with their children to experience, transform, and pass on.

Band Website:
LuaProject.org

Maggie Tharp’s music takes you somewhere else—whether it’s to a memory of a summer evening long ago, to a world where the one that got away never did, or to a future where you finally catch the dream that’s been evading you. The Knoxville singer-songwriter’s music draws from a variety of influences, from 70s folk music, to modern pop, to classic country. With her full band, she delivers a high-energy soundtrack to any event or venue.

Artist’s Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/maggietharpmusic/

The Smokers Club are a raucous American roots band based out of Knoxville Tennessee. Bringing together elements of Blues, Jazz, Gospel and early R&B, The Smokers Club deliver it all wrapped up in one bombastic package. Their lively brand of high energy performance will be sure to set you on your feet and moving along with them.

Band’s Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/knoxcitysmokersclub

Sparky and Rhonda Rucker deliver an uplifting presentation of heart-rending, soulful songs spiced with humor, history, and tall tales. They have long been ambassadors of cultural heritage, accompanying themselves with bottleneck slide guitar, old-time banjo, harmonica, piano, spoons, and bones. Over fifty years of performing, Sparky and Rhonda have performed at the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival as well as NPR's On Point, Prairie Home Companion, Mountain Stage, and Morning Edition. Their recording, Treasures & Tears, was nominated for a W.C. Handy Award, and their music is also included on the Grammy-nominated anthology, Singing Through the Hard Times. Sparky is a 2025 recipient of the Tennessee Arts Commission Folklife Heritage Award.

Artist website: sparkyandrhonda.com

Lisa Webb and Bob Tigert began playing together a little over 4 years ago, with an ‘eclectic’ catalog of originals, jazz, blues, gospel, and rock'n'roll songs and with covers that might take a minute to recognize ("Dixie Chicken" on ukuleles? Well - why not?).

They have released 3 albums in 2 years and have played concerts and festivals across the United States, Mexico and Europe. The Webb-Tigert Duo just might be your new favorite group!

Band Instagram Page: https://www.instagram.com/webbtigertduo