Jubilee Mule is a New England band with deep roots in American traditional music. Founded ten years ago here in Marblehead, Jubilee Mule features Tim Rowell on banjo & vocals; John Price on vocals, guitar & mandolin; Tim Baldanzi on mandolin & vocals; Ren Price on percussion, banjo, uke & vocals; and Etienne Cremieux on the fiddle.

Tim Rowell has been playing banjo for more that 30 years. Having been heavily influenced as a young boy by Pete Seeger and a whole raft of wonderful musicians from the Hudson River Valley, Tim eventually discovered a deep affection for southern Appalachian string band music. In addition to playing, Tim developed a love of teaching. Tim has won several awards from the Lowell Banjo and Fiddle Contest (including first place in the Old-Time Banjo category in 2008) and runs the traditional music program at the Real School of Music in Burlington.

John Price, better known as jp, grew up in the South, singing Southern Baptist hymns and playing classical piano and folk guitar. Between an arts focused school, music lessons and church life, music was a large part of his daily experience (still is). After touring with a USO dance troupe and with the performance group Up With People through Europe, the US and Japan, jp settled in Boston. As a day gig, he works for Perkins the School for the Blind.

Tim Baldanzi has been making music in the Boston area since 1992 . . . initially with the rock bands the Cowpokes, i ginkgo, and willie bernstein. In 2001, he simultaneously got tired of lugging amplifiers around, got bitten by the old time music bug, and got laid off from his day-job. He spent his severance pay on a mandolin, began learning to play fiddle tunes on it. Before joining up with Jubilee Mule, he played with the old time band Little Rabbit.

Ren Price has a diverse taste in music ranging from classic rock, celtic and newgrass to classical. Also an accomplished trumpet player, currently Ren is the bassist for the Marblehead High jazz band and he formerly played bass for the rock group Red Tape. Ren has been described by well established musicians as a sensitive and accurate percussionist.

From classical to jazz and from bluegrass and old time music to rock, Etienne Cremieux’s musical inspiration cuts across multiple genres. He went from Suzuki school kid to Suzuki school dropout and owes more than he can say to the many mentors who have guided and influenced his journey. Etienne is as comfortable jamming bluegrass on his fiddle as he is shredding on a five-string electric violin. His high energy performance is full of fearless improvisation.

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Opening the show is Bennett Hammond, who is better known as the guitar-picking half of Lorraine and Bennett Hammond, “folk missionaries of the first order.” (The Boston Globe) “Just an excellent, solid finger-picking guitarist of the sort you could listen to all day.” (The Shetland Times, Scotland). And now on the fretless banjo (he calls it the first blues instrument), Bennett’s two-finger “RockaFolky” style is like a fusion of old time plunk and bluegrass drive.

• Every time Jubilee Mule plays at the Cantab, they treat listeners to new material and fresh arrangements of traditional songs and tunes. This is not easy to do on a regular basis, but this quartet (sometimes quintet) has been doing it steadily now for over three years. One primary element of old time music is the hypnotic quality possible only when there’s cohesion among the players, and Jubilee Mule has it. This band also draws the largest crowds. It’s obvious they love what they do and, while they take it seriously, they also enjoy themselves. This, of course, is why it’s called “playing music” and not “working music”! Geoff Bartley (May 19, 2009)