Obo Addy was a Ghanaian drummer and dancer who was one of the first native African musicians to bring the fusion of traditional folk music and Western pop music known as worldbeat to Europe and then to the Pacific Northwest of the United States in the late 1970s. He taught music at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon.
Raymond Kaleoalohapoinaʻoleohelemanu Kāne, was one of Hawaii's acknowledged masters of the slack-key guitar. Born in Koloa, Kauaʻi, he grew up in Nanakuli on Oʻahu's Waiʻanae Coast where his stepfather worked as a fisherman.
Mike Seeger was an American folk musician and folklorist. He was a distinctive singer and an accomplished musician who played autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, dobro, jaw harp, and pan pipes. Seeger, a half-brother of Pete Seeger, produced more than 30 documentary recordings, and performed in more than 40 other recordings. He desired to make known the caretakers of culture that inspired and taught him.
Martín Espada is a Latino poet, and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he teaches poetry. Puerto Rico has frequently been featured as a theme in his poems.
The National Heritage Fellowship is a lifetime honor presented to master folk and traditional artists by the National Endowment for the Arts. Similar to Japan's Living National Treasure award, the Fellowship is the United States' highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. It is a one-time only award and fellows must be living citizens or permanent residents of the United States. Each year, fellowships are presented to between nine and fifteen artists or groups at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.
Mike Auldridge was an American Dobro player and a founding member of the bluegrass group The Seldom Scene. The New York Times described Auldridge as "one of the most distinctive dobro players in the history of country and bluegrass music while widening its popularity among urban audiences". He also worked as a graphic artist.
Etta Baker was an American Piedmont blues guitarist and singer from North Carolina.
Michael Louis Doucet is an American singer-songwriter and musician best known as the founder of the Cajun band BeauSoleil.
Rafael Cepeda Atiles, recognized as "The Patriarch of the Bomba and Plena", was the patriarch of the Cepeda family, known internationally as ambassadors of Afro-Puerto Rican folk music.
Claude "Fiddler" Williams was an American jazz violinist and guitarist who recorded and performed into his 90s. He was the first guitarist to record with Count Basie and the first musician to be inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame.
The cuatro is a family of Latin American string instruments played in Puerto Rico, Venezuela and other Latin American countries. It is derived from the Spanish guitar. Although some have viola-like shapes, most cuatros resemble a small to mid-sized classical guitar. In Puerto Rico and Venezuela, the cuatro is an ensemble instrument for secular and religious music, and is played at parties and traditional gatherings.
Wayne C. Henderson is an American guitar maker who specializes in the crafting of handmade, custom acoustic guitars. He also occasionally makes other stringed instruments, such as mandolins, banjos, and fiddles. He is based in Rugby, in Grayson County, Virginia where he was born on May 3, 1947.
William Richard Cumpiano is a builder of stringed musical instruments and is known for his writing and teaching of the art of luthiery. He has been involved in the preservation and understanding of the fading musical and musical craft traditions of his native Puerto Rico. Cumpiano was instrumental in the development of the first feature-length documentary about the cuatro and its music, Our Cuatro: The Puerto Ricans and Stringed Instruments, Volumes 1 and 2.
Andy Statman is a noted American klezmer clarinetist and bluegrass/newgrass mandolinist.
Cephas & Wiggins were an American acoustic blues duo, composed of the guitarist John Cephas and the harmonica player Phil Wiggins. They were known for playing Piedmont blues.
Mundillo is a craft of handmade bobbin lace that is cultivated and honored on the island of Puerto Rico and Panama. The term 'mundillo' means 'little world', referring to the cylindrical pillow on which the lace maker ('Mundillista') weaves intricate designs. The decorative lace is created using wooden bobbins about the diameter of a pencil, which are wound with thread that is twisted and crossed to form a pattern. Depending on the pattern, as few as two dozen or as many as several hundred bobbins may be used.
Rosa Elena Egipciaco, often referred to as the 'Queen of Mundillo', is a master Mundillo lacemaker and teacher of the Puerto Rican folk art. In addition to being part of the long Mundillo tradition of her hometown of Moca, Puerto Rico, she belongs to the much larger, much longer tradition of Spanish and European bobbin lacemaking.
Cyril Pahinui was a slack-key guitarist and singer of Hawaiian music.
Natividad "Nati" Cano was a Mexican-born American mariachi musician and former, longtime leader of Mariachi los Camperos, a Grammy-winning mariachi band based in Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles Times, Mariachi los Camperos is "widely considered one of the top mariachi ensembles in the country". In 1990, Cano was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
Edwin Colón Zayas, often called a genius and virtuous cuatrista, is a highly accomplished musician of Puerto Rico, known for his use and promotion of the Puerto Rican cuatro, an instrument that plays like a guitar, but is shaped closer to the violin. He joins a large number of Puerto Rican artists, "innovative tradition-bearing," who focus their talents in extolling the virtues of the Puerto Rican creole and Jibaro way of life.
