A seventh-generation ballad singer, storyteller, and musician, Sheila Kay Adams was born and raised in the Sodom Laurel community of Madison County, North Carolina, an area renowned for its unbroken tradition of unaccompanied ballad singing dating back to the early Scottish, Scots/Irish and English settlers in the mid-17th century. In September, 2013, she received the nation’s highest award for the arts, The National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship Award which recognizes folk and traditional artists for their artistic excellence and efforts to conserve America's culture for future generations. In 2016, Sheila received the North Carolina Heritage Award, the state’s highest award for the arts.

Rafe Stefanini has been at the forefront of the revival of traditional music from the rural south for over thirty years. His work on fiddle, banjo, guitar and song is represented in over 20 CDs, both as headliner and as guest. He has been a member of such influential bands as the Wildcats, Big Hoedown, The Rockinghams and lately Jumpsteady Boys (with Bruce Molsky, Joe Newberry and Mike Compton). He has been a teacher at many music camps on fiddle, banjo and guitar.

Gellert has been called a “legend in the field of old-time American music,” by Fiddler Magazine. Born in 1949 in New York, Gellert got inspired to learn more about roots music during the folk revival of the 1960s. He learned to play banjo, guitar, fiddle, and sing lots of old and traditional songs and tunes. Fiddler Magazine said Gellert’s fiddling is “bluesy and rhythmic and without regard for modern standards of pitch and tone. In other words, he follows his muse, which makes his music stand alone in a world of timid imitators. Not for the faint of heart, Dan Gellert is a commanding and uncompromising talent.” Gellert has been called “a storehouse of knowledge about traditional fiddle and banjo music from rural American players and early commercial recording artists of the 1920s and 30s.” He has played and recorded with numerous musicians over the years, including a recording of fiddle and banjo duets with his longtime friend, Brad Leftwich. Gellert released a solo recording in 2004, which was received with much acclaim from folk and American roots music enthusiasts.

More recently he starred in a motion picture called The Mountain Minor where he acted and played fiddle throughout the movie. Read more about that here: https://themountainminormovie.com/about-2/. 

Leanne E. Smith holds a Master of Fine Arts in Nonfiction from Goucher College and co-produced the documentaries Floating Dancer: The Story of Robert Dotson, the Walking Step, and the Green Grass Cloggers (2016) and Hoppin’ Possums: Steps from the Green Grass Cloggers (2024). More than 30 of her photos have appeared as cover images for Tar River Poetry. She joined the Green Grass Cloggers in 1998; edited the NC Folklore Journal for a decade; and enjoys square dancing, partner dancing, gardening, fiber arts, being the maker behind Leaf Peeper Tea, and helping learners make breakthroughs in their dancing.