Cathy Barton and Dave Para are dynamic performers from Missouri, acclaimed for their variety and expertise in both vocal and instrumental styles. Their music ranges from hard-driving stringband music to contemplative ballads and airs, and they have a knack for finding unusual songs from both traditional and contemporary sources. Much of their Missouri music has been collected from excellent and noted traditional musicians such as fiddlers Art Galbraith and Taylor McBaine, gospel singer Thelma Conway, and collectors Max Hunter and Loman Cansler.
A recognized master of the frailing banjo style, Cathy has twice won the Tennessee Old-Time Banjo Championship. The late Roy Acuff called her his "favorite banjo player" because her playing reminded him of earlier country music sounds. Cathy can also be credited with the growing interest in hammered dulcimer in the Midwest. In addition to the banjo and hammered dulcimer, this versatile duo play guitar, Autoharp, mountain dulcimer and such "found" instruments as the bones, spoons, mouthbow, and leaf. (If you haven't heard a virtuoso on the leaf before, here's your chance!)
Lately, Cathy and Dave have been recording songs from the Civil War in Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas. Both their latest album, "Rebel in the Woods," with songwriter and historian Bob Dyer (who wrote the Dry Waltz), and the earlier "Johnny Whistletrigger" have gained them wide respect among the Civil War historians in the region. Historian Tom Goodrich credits Barton, Para, and Dyer not only with unearthing "priceless musical relics, but by combining their tremendous talents and professional packaging to these forgotten songs, they have added a new dimension to our understanding of the conflict."
Ed Trickett has been collecting and interpreting traditional and traditional-based folk songs for over 30 years, and has appeared on over 40 recordings and appeared on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion and other public radio broadcasts. His repertoire includes a wide range of ballads, sea songs, songs of love and protest, and an occasional song of no consequence whatsoever.
Ed Trickett is well-known to New England audiences, primarily due to his singing with New Englander Gordon Bok and Ann Mayo Muir. He accompanies himself on 6 and 12 string guitar and hammered dulcimer, an instrument that he helped popularize. Ed has a beautiful unaffected tenor voice that lulls you into enjoying a marvelous evening of music, as if joining him in his living room.
Ed Has also appeared as an accompanying musician for numerous other folk artists: Don McLean, Mark Spoelstra, Rosalie Sorrels, Bob Zentz, Harry Tuft, Joan Sprung, Sara Grey and Sandy and Caroline Paton.
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