Shemekia Copeland - Whether she's belting out a raucous blues-rocker, firing up a blistering soul-shouter, bringing the spirit to a gospel-fueled R&B rave-up or digging deep down into a subtle, country-tinged ballad, Shemekia Copeland sounds like no one else. With a voice that is alternately sultry, assertive and roaring, Shemekia's wide-open vision of contemporary blues, roots and soul music showcases the evolution of a passionate artist with a modern musical and lyrical approach. The Chicago Tribune said Copeland delivers "gale force singing and power" with a "unique, gutsy style, vibrant emotional palette and intuitive grasp of the music." NPR Music calls her "fiercely expressive." Copeland's return to Alligator Records with Outskirts of Love (she recorded four albums for the label from 1998 through 2006) finds her at her most charismatic, performing roots rock, Americana, and blues with power and authority, nuance and shading. Produced by The Wood Brothers' Oliver Wood, Outskirts Of Love is a musical tour-de-force, with Copeland rocking out on the title track, taking charge in Crossbone Beach, honoring her father, the late Johnny Clyde Copeland with her Afro-Beat-infused take on his Devil's Hand, tackling homelessness on Cardboard Box and showing off her country swagger on Drivin' Out Of Nashville. She puts her stamp on songs made famous by Solomon Burke (I Feel A Sin Coming On), Jesse Winchester (Isn't That So), Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry (The Battle Is Over), Creedence Clearwater Revival (Long As I Can See The Light), ZZ Top (Jesus Just Left Chicago), Albert King (Wrapped Up In Love Again) and Jessie Mae Hemphill (Lord, Help The Poor And Needy). Friends including Billy F Gibbons, Robert Randolph, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Will Kimbrough and Pete Finney all add their talent with unbridled enthusiasm. The result is Copeland's most decidedly contemporary and musically adventurous album of her still-evolving career. Shemekia Copeland was born in Harlem, New York on April 10, 1979, and came to her singing career naturally. Her bluesman father recognized his daughter's talent early on. He always encouraged her to sing at home and even brought her on stage to sing at Harlem's famed Cotton Club when she was just eight. At that time Shemekia's embarrassment outweighed her desire to sing. But when she was 15 and her father's health began to slow him down, she received the calling. "It was like a switch went off in my head," recalls Shemekia, "and I wanted to sing. It became a want and a need. I had to do it."​

John Németh & the Blue Dreamers - As a Boise, Idaho teenager in the early ‘90s, John Németh was drawn to the hard-edged hip hop sounds and rock bands of the day – but when a friend exposed him to Buddy Guy and Junior Wells’s classic “Hoodoo Man Blues,” he was hooked. John played harp and sang in local bands, often opening the show for nationally touring blues acts. John soon caught the ear of established blues musicians, and before long he was releasing his own CDs – THE JACK OF HARPS (2002) and COME AND GET IT (2004), featuring Junior Watson – and performing in Junior Watson’s band. John relocated to San Francisco in 2004, where he wound up doing a two-year stint with Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets, filling in for the ailing Sam Myers. Németh immersed himself in the deep musical waters of the Bay area, absorbing more of the soul and funk grooves of what he calls “the early East Bay Grease sound” of San Francisco and Oakland bands. John’s reputation continued to grow, and he soon signed a recording contract with Blind Pig Records. His national debut for that label – MAGIC TOUCH (2007), produced by Anson Funderburgh and featuring Junior Watson on guitar – received an ecstatic response from fans and the media, and he was hailed as the new voice of the Blues. Living Blues Magazine enthused, “Magic Touch gives hope that the blues will survive.” In 2008 Németh was recruited by Elvin Bishop to do some performances and contribute four vocal tracks to his Grammy-nominated album THE BLUES ROLLS ON. Németh released two more albums on the Blind Pig label – LOVE ME TONIGHT (2009), NAME THE DAY! (2010) – earning critical raves and strong sales, both hitting #6 on the Billboard Top Blues Album Charts, and beginning his long string of Blues Music Award nominations, numbering fourteen at last count. John also won two Blues Blast Music Awards – Best New Artist Debut Recording and Sean Costello Rising Star Award – voted on by nearly 11,000 blues fans. John followed up with two independently released live albums, BLUES LIVE and SOUL LIVE in 2012. In 2013 John relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, where he quickly became a key player in the city’s rich musical scene. He teamed up with producer Scott Bomar and his classic Memphis Soul band, the Bo-Keys to create an album of revisited Soul classics, MEMPHIS GREASE (2014), on the Blue Corn label, which debuted at #4 on the Billboard Blues Chart. John won the 2104 Blues Music Award in the Soul Blues Male Artist category, and MEMPHIS GREASE took the prize for Soul Blues Album in 2015. John Németh continues to be one of the hottest stars in the musical firmament, touring nationally and internationally with his Memphis band, taking the world by storm. He is currently nominated for a 2017 Blues Music Award in the category of B.B. King Entertainer of the Year . FEELIN’ FREAKY will be released in May 2017, on John’s own Memphis Grease label, and it’s already generating a firestorm among his devoted fans and the media.

Bridget Kearney - In the 12 years she has toured the world as a member of the soul-pop sensation Lake Street Dive, Bridget Kearney has gotten good at a lot of things: adjusting to jet lag, sleeping in moving vehicles, hauling her acoustic bass up and down stairs, keeping her cool in front of cameras, thousands of people and personal heroes. But the skill she has honed most obsessively is songwriting. “For me it's the best part of music,” says Kearney. “That's the best feeling: after those few hours that you spend working on the song, and you have this thing that you've made, and you’re like, ‘Wow. This didn’t exist before. I’m so excited about what just happened.’" Now, at long last, Kearney steps into the spotlight with her first solo effort, a wry, big-hearted pop album entitled Won’t Let You Down. The record, like its title, promises not to disappoint. Kearney grew up in Iowa City and went to college in Boston, where she double-majored in jazz bass at the New England Conservatory of Music and English at Tufts University. While still a student, she won the grand prize in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, a harbinger of things to come. It was during this time, too, that Kearney and three of her fellow conservatory students founded Lake Street Dive. But Kearney has always been voraciously collaborative, dabbling in chamber pop with the Brooklyn group Cuddle Magic, bluegrass with the now-defunct Boston outfit Joy Kills Sorrow, and Ghanian music as part of a duo with fellow songwriter Benjamin Lazar Davis. Won’t Let You Down is the first project in which Kearney has appeared as the primary vocalist. “I've always had this affinity for singers and songs that are kind of vulnerable-sounding and flawed,” she says. “I'm not a trained singer or a really powerful singer, so that's something that you can kind of use as an advantage in your writing. You can say some things that are vulnerable and personal, and I think it can come across more powerfully with a voice that's imperfect.”

T Sisters - The T Sisters, born and raised in California and now based in the creative hub of Oakland, embody harmony. It’s in their blood, bones, and history. Erika, Rachel and Chloe have been singing and writing music together since childhood, and the lifetime of practice shows. The three sisters’ inventive songwriting is supported by their own acoustic instrumentation as well as upright bass (Steve Height), mandolin/guitar (Andrew Allen Fahlander), and drums (Marlon Aldana). Their sound represents a continuum of music, from traditional to pop influences, moments of breathtaking a cappella to swells of energetic indie Americana. In the last two years, they’ve been honored to support such acts as Amos Lee, Todd Rundgren, The Waybacks, Laurie Lewis, ALO, Elephant Revival, The California Honeydrops, and more. Notable performances include Merlefest, Kate Wolf Music Festival, High Sierra Music Festival, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (support role), Sisters Folk Festival, Strawberry Music Festival, Americana Music Association Festival, Music City Roots, and Garrison Keillor’s ‘A Prairie Home Companion’. In 2014, the T Sisters released their debut full-length album Kindred Lines under the production of folk/bluegrass legend Laurie Lewis, and they look forward to the release of their new full-length album recorded at the legendary Barefoot Studios in LA in 2016.​

Edward David Anderson - Edward David Anderson is one of music's modern makers, a rock & roll veteran who spent his formative years fronting the revered Midwest band, Backyard Tire Fire. Known for infectious melodies and memorable messages Anderson penned 8 albums for the band and played countless shows across the US and Canada. Their eventual hiatus fostered his solo debut, Lies & Wishes (2014, Royal Potato Family) working with friend and Grammy winning producer Steve Berlin of Los Lobos.  After a serendipitous move south in 2013 introduced him to the bustling gulf coast music scene he met producer Anthony Crawford (Neil Young, Willie Sugarcapps) and recorded Lower Alabama: The Loxley Sessions over the winter of 2014. The album floats melodiously on rivers of fiddle and clouds of pedal steel, on gentle acoustic guitars and hints of piano, dusted with some ghostly guitar from Will Kimbrough and striking vocal harmony by Crawford's wife, singer Savana Lee. The nine-song collection steps firmly into the Americana world and was hailed “A wonderfully soulful record” by David Dye (NPR's World Cafe) and "A simply infectious album” by No Depression. Anderson is an artist on an existential quest who seeks and searches through song. Writing is in his bones and music in his soul. He's a lifer who's happy when he's learning, creating and performing and restless when he's not. The Chicagoland native, influenced by blues, rock & roll, folk and bluegrass creates a sound uniquely his own. He strums acoustic guitar, banjo and cigar box guitars while happily kicking a bass drum and singing songs that evoke an emotional and spiritual connection with listeners in venues large and small.​​