BOBBY McMILLON
The youngest recipient of the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award, Bobby McMillon is a walking encyclopedia of all things Appalachian. From his father’s family in Cocke County, TN, he learned Primitive Baptist hymns and traditional stories and ballads. From his mother’s people in Yancy and Mitchell Counties, NC, he heard “booger tales,” “haint tales,” and murder legends. Growing up in Caldwell County, he went to school with relatives of Tom Dula, learned their family stories, and heard ballads, gospel songs, and Carter family recordings. He has performed at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the A. P. Carter Memorial Festival, and the National Storytelling Festival, and his ballad singing was featured in the film, Songcatcher.

RODNEY SUTTON
Rodney prides himself on his ability to share his love of traditional Appalachian step-dancing with everyone – even those who are not sure that they can learn to dance! He is a traditional dancer, caller, musician, storyteller, a veteran of the early days of the Green Grass Cloggers, and co-founder of the Fiddle Puppets (now known as Footworks). Over the years he has traveled all across the US and in the British Isles, performing and teaching clogging, and calling square and contra dances. He has been on staff at numerous music and dance weeks including Fiddlehead, Pinewoods, Augusta, Ashokan, and 17 years at the Swannanoa Gathering. As a member of North Carolina’s Visiting Artist Program, he taught traditional dance in dozens of schools throughout western NC. He continues to promote and share his love of old-time music and dance by producing the Bluff Mountain Festival each June in Hot Springs for the Madison County Arts Council and by serving on Asheville’s Folk Heritage Committee, which produces Shindig on the Green and the Mountain Music and Dance Festival. Rodney has been instrumental in organizing the Regional Junior Appalachian Musicians program into a certified non-profit group that oversees JAM programs here in our mountain communities.

MEREDITH McINTOSH
With a degree in music education and a great love for old-time music, Meredith is known as a patient and enthusiastic teacher. She plays fiddle, guitar, bass, flute and piano. Over the years she has performed with Ida Red, the Heartbeats, Balfa Toujours, The Rockinghams and the New Southern Ramblers. She lives in Asheville, NC where she is a certified massage therapist and teacher of the Alexander Technique.www.myspace.com/newsouthernramblers

CAROL ELIZABETH JONES
Carol Elizabeth Jones has made her mark as a singer of traditional mountain music and as a writer of new songs in the traditional style. As a member of The Wildcats and the Wandering Ramblers, she made memorable recordings that combined well-honed vocals with sharp-edged string band music. She has also recorded with James Leva, Ginny Hawker, Hazel Dickens, and Laurel Bliss. Carol Elizabeth has been a member of the Hopeful Gospel Quartet with Garrison Keillor and Robin and Linda Williams on A Prairie Home Companion. Originally from Berea, Kentucky, she now lives in Lexington, Virginia where she is the Children’s Librarian at the Public Library.

BRETT RATLIFF
Brett Ratliff grew up in the historic coal camp town of Van Lear, KY, surrounded by mountain music. Immersed in the musical traditions of his native Appalachia, Brett’s enthusiasm and curiosity fuels an energetic approach to learning, performing, and teaching the musical traditions of the region. He is a favorite instructor at The Cowan Creek Mountain Music School and a dedicated instructor at Appalshop’s Pick and Bow Program, providing traditional music classes after school for mountain youth of eastern Kentucky. Brett performs with the Clack Mountain String Band, Rich and the Po’ Folk, and the Dirk Powell Band. His first solo recording, Cold Icy Mountain, was released to critical acclaim on June Appal recordings, and in 2009, he was one of four banjo players featured by the Kentucky Arts Council at the Master Series Banjo Concert in the state capitol. www.myspace.com/cornbrett

ELLIE GRACE
Ellie Grace is a multi-instrumentalist, percussive dancer, and singer who grew up performing professionally as part of the Grace Family band. She now carries on her family’s musical tradition as a solo artist, as part of a renowned duo with her sister, Leela, and with several highly respected bands and dance companies. Ellie has toured as a member of the Dirk Powell Band and has been on faculty teaching percussive dance at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, in addition to touring and teaching nationally and internationally. Though still young, Ellie has a lifetime of experience to offer, delivered with joyful energy and humor. www.gracefamilymusic.com

DENISA RULLMOSS
Denisa (known as “The Queen” to kids everywhere) will once again bring her exuberant, creative energies to the Gathering. She is a multi-talented and innovative organizer who has managed to retain a child’s viewpoint on the world while remaining a fully-functioning adult! Denisa is a part time Nanny, homeschooling mother, and Director for the Lake Eden Arts Festival (LEAF) Kid’s Village. Shaving cream, parachutes, bubbles and squirt guns are the tools of her trade, as she provides wild & wacky games and activities for families and kids everywhere. Her past accomplishments include co-founding the newspaper Mothertongue: A Progressive Parenting Source; Panther Paws, a public school newspaper for and by kids (funded by a grant from the Asheville City Schools Foundation), Kindred Kids, the Mothertongue paper for kids, and the newsletter HOME (Homeschooling Opens Minds Everyday). As a kid’s crafts & games specialist Denisa is excited to bring her silly songs, cool crafts and good times to the Gathering for the 16th year, as she teaches and coordinates the Children’s Program during Traditional Song/Fiddle, Celtic and Old-Time Weeks.

GUEST MASTER ARTISTS

SHEILA KAY ADAMS
Ballad singer, banjo player, and storyteller, Sheila comes from a small mountain community in Madison County, NC. For seven generations, her family has maintained the tradition of passing down the English, Scottish and Irish ballads that came over with her ancestors in the late 1700s. A perennial favorite at Asheville’s Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, Sheila has performed and taught at many major festivals and workshops throughout the country. She served as the ballad-singing coach for the feature film, Songcatcher, and her novel, My Old True Love, published in 2004 by Algonquin Books, was a finalist for the Southeastern Booksellers Association’s Book of the Year Award.

THOMAS MAUPIN
Thomas Maupin describes himself as a “self-taught buckdancer with a flatfoot style.” Growing up in central Tennessee, he was exposed to dance at an early age at a Saturday night hoedowns and barn dances. Thomas has performed at the Museum of Appalachia’s Fall Homecoming and Uncle Dave Macon Days in Tennessee. He has won first place in the senior flatfooting competition at the Appalachian Stringband Festival at Clifftop, WV, as well as the Silver Stars talent contest at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, TN.

BENTON FLIPPEN
Born in 1920, and raised in Surry County, North Carolina, Benton started playing two-finger style banjo in his early teens and then fiddle when he was about eighteen. Influenced by local fiddlers Esker Hutchins and Tommy Jarrell, as well as Fiddlin’ Arthur Smith on the radio, Benton developed his own distinctive style which includes unique slides on the fingerboard. Benton and his band, the Smoky Mountain Boys, won numerous ribbons at old-time fiddlers’ conventions from Union Grove to Mt. Airy to Galax throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Best known for his driving square dance tunes and breakdowns, he continues to play local dances regularly throughout the Mt. Airy region. A recipient of the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award, he has performed at the National Folk Festival, on National Public Radio’s Folkmasters, and at countless music festivals nationwide.

ROBERT DOTSON
Robert Dotson of Sugar Grove, NC, is one of the best flatfoot dancers anywhere, and he was an early mentor to the Green Grass Cloggers. A recipient of the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award, he has inspired many dancers, both young and old, to take to the dance floor with confidence.

EARL MURPHY
93-year-old fiddler Earl Murphy grew up in Missouri, learning traditional music from his father and uncle, and he won his first fiddle contest at the age of nine. In the late 1930s, Earl joined the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and was sent to Idaho where he added western swing, Mexican tunes, and cowboy songs to his repertoire. In the 1940s, 50s and early 60s, he played in honky-tonks and on local television while working for International Harvester in Moline, IL. Now living in Athens, GA, Earl is still active playing old-time and bluegrass music.