John J. Mellencamp, previously known as Johnny Cougar, John Cougar, and John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American singer-songwriter. He is known for his catchy brand of heartland rock, which emphasizes traditional instrumentation. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, followed by an induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018.
Ronald Frederick Lane was an English musician and songwriter who was the bassist and co-founder of the rock bands Small Faces (1965–69) and Faces (1969–73).
Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser.
Lisa Ruth Germano is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Indiana. Her album Geek the Girl (1994) was chosen as a top album of the 1990s by Spin magazine. She began her career as a violinist for John Mellencamp. As of 2018, she has released thirteen albums.
Susan Tedeschi is an American singer and guitarist. A multiple Grammy Award nominee, she is a member of the Tedeschi Trucks Band, a conglomeration of her band, her husband Derek Trucks’ band, and other musicians.
Poi Dog Pondering is an American musical group which is noted for its cross-pollination of diverse musical genres, including various forms of acoustic and electronic music. Frank Orrall founded the band in Hawaii in 1984, initially as a solo project. In 1985 Orrall formed the first line-up of PDP to perform its first concert at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. The band embarked on a yearlong street performance busking tour across North America. They eventually settled down in Austin, Texas in 1987, where they recorded their first three albums. In 1992, the band relocated to Chicago and they began to incorporate orchestral arrangements and elements of electronic, house music, and soul music into their acoustic rock style. The membership of Poi Dog Pondering has evolved from album to album, with Frank Orrall being a constant player since the inception of the band.
Carlene Carter is an American country music singer and songwriter. She is the daughter of June Carter Cash and her first husband, Carl Smith.
Regina Carter is an American jazz violinist. She is the cousin of jazz saxophonist James Carter.
Abra Moore is an American folk-styled rock singer-songwriter. Moore was a founding member of the Hawaiian rock band Poi Dog Pondering, but left to pursue a solo career after the group's move to Texas in the late 1980s. Her 1997 album Strangest Places included the hit "Four Leaf Clover", which received airplay in Midwest U.S. radio markets and VH1 and MTV2 rotation, and charted on the Billboard Hot 100.
Amanda Gabrielle Brown is an Australian composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter. She was the violinist of Australian indie rock band The Go-Betweens (1986–1989): recorded on their studio albums, Tallulah (1987) and 16 Lovers Lane (1988). Brown has also worked as a session musician and, since 2000, as a screen music composer. She won the AACTA Award for Best Original Music Score in 2020 for Babyteeth (2019) and also Best Original Music Score in a Documentary for Brazen Hussies (2020). At the APRA-AGSC Screen Music Awards of 2009 she won Best Music for a Documentary for Sidney Nolan: Mask and Memory (2008) and Best Music for a Television Series or Serial for The Secrets She Keeps at the 2020 ceremony.
Jon Dee Graham is an American musician, guitarist and songwriter from Austin, Texas, United States. Graham was named the Austin Musician of the Year during the South by Southwest (SXSW) music conference in 2006. He was inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame three times: as a solo artist in 2000, again in 2008 as a member of The Skunks, and again in 2009 as a member of the True Believers.
Anne Harris is an American singer, songwriter, violinist, recording artist and actress based in Chicago, Illinois. She has independently produced and released six studio albums on her record label, Rugged Road Records: Anne Harris (2001), Open Your Doors (2003), Wine and Poetry (2005), Gravity and Faith (2008), Come Hither (2015) and Roots (2019). A live album, Live at the Acorn Theater, was released in 2008. Her music has been described by various writers as incorporating a variety of influences, including traditional Celtic music, American folk-rock, Afrobeat, soul, and chamber music. For lack of a specific genre label, her work has been dubbed "conscious music" which refers to music and lyrics that have some basis in a spiritual, humanist philosophy.
Alison Chesley, known also by her stage name Helen Money, is a Chicago-based cellist and composer.
Crystal Taliefero-Pratt is an American multi-instrumentalist and vocalist. Taliefero grew up with a musical family, performing rhythm and blues with her brother in the Chicago metropolitan area. During her college years she was discovered by John Mellencamp, who helped guide her to a career as a professional musician. Taliefero performed with several artists throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 1989 she was hired as a studio musician for the Billy Joel Band, and she has been touring and recording with them ever since.
Ugly Americans was an American rock band from Austin, Texas consisting of former members of Cracker, Mojo Nixon, and Poi Dog Pondering.
Walter Salas-Humara is the chief songwriter for and a founding member of The Silos, a rock band formed in 1985 in New York City with Bob Rupe. The Silos were voted the Best New American Band in the Rolling Stone Critics Poll of 1987, and have released more than a dozen albums to date. As indicated by its name, which suggests both agrarian populism and impending apocalypse, the band shows influences of post-punk East Village experimentalism as well as the nascent country-rock revivalism that would return at decade's end. As described by Stephen Holden in the New York Times, "The band's austere style inflects the astringent twang of the Velvet Underground with the drone of R.E.M. and adds countryish echoes that recall Gram Parsons."
Jenee Fleenor is an American musician. A singer-songwriter, she plays the fiddle, mandolin and acoustic guitar and has performed with various musicians and bands. In 2019, she became the first woman to be nominated and to win the Country Music Association's Musician of the Year and the first fiddle player to win the award in over 20 years. She has subsequently won the award a further four consecutive times.
Volo Volo is an album by the American worldbeat band Poi Dog Pondering. It was released in 1992 via Columbia Records.
Wishing Like a Mountain and Thinking Like the Sea is an album by the American band Poi Dog Pondering, released in 1990. The first single was "U-Li-La-Lu". The band supported the album with a North American tour.
Pomegranate is an album by the American band Poi Dog Pondering, released in 1995. It was first released in a limited edition by the band's label, with a national release by Bar/None Records. The band supported the album with a North American tour. Pomegranate sold more than 40,000 copies in its first six months of release. "Catacombs" was released as a single. An EP, Electrique Plummagram, contained dance remixes of some Pomegranate tracks.
