Fifteen years into his career on the international folk circuit, Alastair Moock has managed to carve out a unique niche for himself: He is an artist committed to celebrating the roots of American music while knocking down the walls between different audiences, genres and musical traditions. Today, his audiences range from adults all the way down to preschoolers, and he plays everything from nightclubs to theaters to schoolrooms. Like his boyhood hero, Woody Guthrie, Moock believes in the power of music to reach all people — young and old, far and wide, for all occasions.

Photo by Mara Brod

Rani Arbo is the fiddler, lead singer, and founder of daisy mayhem. With a bewitching, expressive alto that is equal parts choir girl, flirty teenager, and world-weary woman, she navigates swing tunes, funky call-and-response songs, and ballads with unusual honesty and ease. Steeped in thirty years of choral singing, Arbo also spent years with a honkytonk band, a Balkan rock band, and folk-bluegrass band Salamander Crossing. A cellist by training, her swampy, self-taught fiddling draws from swing, blues, and old-time music. On stage, Arbo brings a rich life — as a 15-year veteran performer, breast cancer survivor, mother, and songwriter — into humble and compelling performances. Arbo also has toured and recorded with Joan Baez, John McCutcheon and many others.

Photo by Mary Beth Meehan

Anand Nayak fell for the guitar as a teenager and has been a lost cause ever since, exploring music and instruments from all over the world. Nayak is a powerful singer and songwriter with a rare gift for arranging and a gutsy guitar style that draws from a century’s worth of jazz, funk, blues and folk masters. Nayak is also a recording engineer and producer and performs in a folk duo with his wife Polly Fiveash as well as being part of Rani Arbo’s band, daisy mayhem.

For more than a decade, Jimmy Ryan has electrified the Boston music scene with his fusion of bluegrass pickin’ and driving edge rock. Performing live, Jimmy’s fingers fly across the mandolin like lightning rips through a stormy sky. His flair is energizing, his style unique and the outcome leaves his audience spellbound. A blended perfection of rootsy rock, bluegrass and world music, his invigorating performance displays influences ranging from Bill Monroe to Bob Marley. Over the years Jimmy has teamed up with a string of talent, creating his own style of alt-country that compliments every one of his musical cohorts. Most noted for his left-handed imaginative mandolin playing, Jimmy Ryan’s old-timey voice and masterful songwriting reflect a seasoned musician indeed.

Photo by Megan Summers

• . . . Moock is an anachronism in the best sense. He’s a young man with the wizened sound of someone much older, often sounding a lot like Steve Forbert in both voice and arrangements, and he mixes his rootsy, confident originals with covers of old songs. . . . Moock knows both his history and how to tell a good story. Dirty Linen
• With each of his five albums, this Boston-based singer-songwriter has honed his signature ability to write songs that sound joyfully homespun and irreverent while also being painstakingly poetic and intricate. He’s settled nicely into the role of a folkie raconteur, exploring the American vernacular from swing to blues to Appalachian mountain music and fitting each genre to the timeless themes of his lyrics. Those styles also fit perfectly with Alastair’s voice, which is pitched somewhere between a rasp and growl: this is a voice made for vintage-sounding Americana. Sing Out!
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• Arbo is a triple threat as a fiddler, songwriter, and possessor of a uniquely beautiful, malleable alto. [daisy mayhem]’s playing is tight, with stylish, unexpected choices, and Anand Nayak is a marvel of stylistic versatility on lead guitar, with a rich resonant tone and soulful, imaginative fills. Acoustic Guitar Magazine
• Arbo’s alto deftly shifts from smoldering to playful, and her fiddling speaks of old-time blues and jazz, all tinged with a talent for translating anything into accessible music. Pacific Sun, Mill Valley CA
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• Years before anyone ever heard of a genre called “Alt-Country,” Jimmy Ryan had founded a great band called the Blood Oranges and had pioneered this style of rootsy, country tinged, back to basics rock ’n’ roll that spawned a whole host of followers and disciples. After three albums, the band had broken up and soon Jimmy Ryan was playing mandolin with everyone including Morphine, Catie Curtis, Warren Zevon, Dumptruck, Jake Brennan and a whole host of others. If you hear a ripping mandolin on anyone’s record, odds are it is him. . . . . Music like this never grows old or tired. Joel Simches, The Noise
• Jimmy Ryan puts the ‘man’ in mandolin. Frank Goodman, Pure Music