Old-Time Week 2025

Becky Hill – Advisor

Becky Hill is a sought-after percussive dancer, Appalachian square dance caller, choreographer, and educator. Becky has worked with Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble, Rhythm in Shoes, Good Foot Dance Company, and studied with an array of percussive dance luminaries. Her choreography has been featured at Wheatland Music Festival, Jacob’s Pillow, and the Kennedy Center among others. She performs regularly with the T-Mart Rounders, Jesse Milnes, Chao Tian, Rui Fu, and Ben Nelson. She was a 2018 OneBeat Fellow, a 2021 Artist-in-Residence at Strathmore, a 2022 Artist-in-Residence at the John C.Campbell Folk School, and earned her MFA in Dance at University of Maryland College Park in 2022. Becky has done extensive research into Appalachian Dance alongside folklorist Gerry Milnes, where they co-created a documentary “Reel ‘Em Boys, Reel ‘Em” on West Virginia dance traditions and co-founded the Mountain Dance Trail of Augusta Heritage Center. As an avid organizer and teacher, Becky’s work is deeply rooted in the connections between music and community. She believes there is always more to learn and is dedicated to creative innovative choreography tethered to traditional music and dance.

Riley Baugus

Baugus worked as a welder and blacksmith for 18 years before becoming a professional musician. He has performed throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Ireland, Scotland, and England. He has played with several old-time string bands, including The Farmer’s Daughters, The Konnarock Critters, The Red Hots, Backstep, and the Old Hollow Stringband. He tours regularly with Dirk Powell and Tim O’Brien, and frequently performs and tours with dancer Ira Bernstein, with the duo show Appalachian Roots.

He often performs as a guest musician with the Dirk Powell Band and the North Carolina folk band Polecat Creek. He sang on the soundtrack to the 2003 film Cold Mountain. He has recorded with Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, Willie Nelson, Dirk Powell, and Martha Scanlan. He taught banjo at the Augusta Heritage Center’s Old Time Week in Elkins, West Virginia and at the Midwest Banjo Camp in Olivet, Michigan.

Hasee Ciaccio

Hasee Ciaccio is a performer, maker, studio musician and educator residing in the piedmont of North Carolina. Born and raised on the Low Country coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, she made her way to the Mountain South in 2010 to study traditional Appalachian music and culture at East Tennessee State University. Hasee drives the upright bass with honed skill and conviction well beyond their years, moving listeners at festivals, intimate venues, and concert halls alike. In recent years, they have toured and recorded with artists among the likes of the timeless and legendary Laurie Lewis, the all star bluegrass band Sister Sadie, the trailblazing Alice Gerrard and the visionary Jake Blount. During Hasee’s time with Sister Sadie, the band regularly appeared on Nashville’s own “The Grand Ole Opry,” and brought home various International Bluegrass Music Association Awards, including “Entertainer of the Year” in 2020, the industry’s highest honor. Throughout Hasee’s years as a performer, they have shared the stage with artists among the likes of Mary Chapin Carpenter, Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Del McCoury, Molly Tuttle, Dale Ann Bradley, and David Grisman, playing at such notable venues as New York City’s Lincoln Center, PBS’s Song of the Mountains, and San Francisco’s “Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival.” While off tour, you might find her foraging for wild mushrooms or medicinal plants along the Laurel Fork River, tracking a session at a regional recording studio, or sitting on the porch at their home in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

Hubby Jenkins

Hubby Jenkins is a talented multi-instrumentalist who endeavors to share his love and knowledge of old-time American music. Born and raised in Brooklyn he delved into his Southern roots, following the thread of African American history that wove itself through country blues, ragtime, fiddle and banjo, and traditional jazz. Hubby got his higher musical education started as a busker. He developed his guitar and vocal craft on the sidewalks and subway platforms of New York City, performing material by those venerable artists whose work he was quickly absorbing. An ambitiously itinerant musician, he took his show on the road, playing the streets, coffee shops, bars, and house parties of cities around the U.S. 

After years of busking around the country and making a name for himself, Hubby became acquainted with the Carolina Chocolate Drops. He was an integral part of the Grammy award winning Carolina Chocolate Drops (2010 – 2016), as well as a member of Rhiannon Giddens band. Today he spreads his knowledge and love of old-time American music and history through his dynamic solo performances.

Dakota Karper

Dakota Karper, hailing from rural West Virginia, grew up immersed in the rich traditions of Appalachian Old-time music. From an early age, she embraced folk music, studying under master fiddler Joe Herrmann and honing her craft at the Augusta Heritage Center. Dakota also deepened her skills with classical violin at the Shenandoah Arts Academy in Winchester, VA. After spending seven years in Baltimore, she returned to Capon Bridge, WV, where she now teaches Appalachian fiddle and performs regularly throughout the region.

Her music reflects a profound connection to her roots, blending haunting melodies, energetic bow strokes, and rhythmic grooves. Over the years, Dakota has played with several bands, including the Short Mountain String Band, Hay Fever, Hemlock and Hickory, and most recently, Vandalia. Her discography features projects like “Short Mountain String Band” (2008), “Hay Fever” (2018), “Fiddler Fair” (2020), and “Hemlock & Hickory” (2022).

In 2019, Dakota founded ‘The Cat and The Fiddle,’ a traditional roots music school, and in 2023, she was appointed executive director of the non-profit ‘Cacapon Music & Dance Foundation,’ furthering her commitment to preserving and promoting Appalachian music and culture.

Danny Knicely

Danny Knicely comes from a musical family steeped in a mountain music tradition for generations. He first learned music from his grandfather, A.O. Knicely, who played dances and social events in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia beginning in the 1930’s. Danny has used his roots in old-time and bluegrass to explore various types of music from around the world. Danny has won many awards for his mandolin, guitar, fiddle and flat-foot dance expertise, including first place in the mandolin contest at the prestigious Telluride Bluegrass Festival. His masterful mandolinistry and original compositions can be heard on his debut recording “Roots and Branches” and his colorful, versatile, acoustic guitar picking can be heard on his “Waltz for Aimee” album.

Elizabeth Laprelle

Elizabeth LaPrelle is a scholar and singer of Appalachian Ballads from Rural Retreat, Virginia. She built her style and repertoire from research into archival recordings, and family and friends. She started making recordings with her family as a teen, and received her undergraduate degree from the  College of William and Mary with a major in Southern Appalachian Traditional Performance. In the experimental folk duo Anna & Elizabeth, she toured internationally and helped re-popularize the “crankie” performance art form. She’s also a banjo-player, and a visual and interdisciplinary artist. She lives with her husband Brian Dolphin and their young son.

Leyla McCalla

Born in New York City to Haitian emigrants and activists, Leyla McCalla finds inspiration from her past and present– her music vibrates with three centuries of history and influences from around the globe. McCalla possesses a stunning mastery of the cello, tenor banjo and guitar and, as a multilingual singer and songwriter, has risen to produce a distinctive sound that reflects the union of her roots and experience. In addition to her solo work, McCalla is a founding member of Our Native Daughters (with Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah and Allison Russell) and alumna of Grammy award-winning Black string band The Carolina Chocolate Drops. 

McCalla’s new album and fifth studio recording, Sun Without the Heat (ANTI, April 12), is playful and full of joy while holding the pain and tension of transformation. Throughout Sun Without the Heat’s ten tracks, McCalla achieves a balance of heaviness and light with melodies and rhythms derived from various forms of Afro-diasporic music including Afrobeat, Ethiopian modalities, Brazilian Tropicalismo, and American folk and blues.

Lindsay McCaw

Lindsay McCaw is a musician and puppeteer who lives in Detroit, MI. She has been playing fiddle, banjo, guitar, and Hawaiian guitar for two decades. She has several music projects in Detroit including “The Boblo Islanders”. She is a founding member of the Detroit Square Dance Society and The Corn Potato String Band, and has called square dances and taught American folk dance all over the world. She is a two-time winner of the Minneapolis Jug Band Contest and four-time first-place winner of the Sheffield Field Days Fiddle contest in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.

As a puppeteer, Lindsay has performed and created puppet shows with groups all over the US, Europe and Asia. She spent years as a staff member with well-known puppet companies such as Bread and Puppet Theatre in Glover, VT and In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre in Minneapolis, MN.

She co-founded a company called “Flying Cardboard Theater” who build and perform puppet shows and produce the Detroit Contastoria Fest. She also currently works with Detroit Puppet Company.

Tessa McCoy

Born and raised in Saint Albans, WV, Tessa spent much of her youth in the Kanawha Valley, ripening into the next link in an unbroken chain of traditional music and culture in the region. Her driving and specific old-time fiddling style pays homage to her early mentors, Jake Krack and Bobby Taylor, while showcasing her own take on standards, arrangements and festival favorites. She was featured in Fiddler Magazine in Winter 2021, WV Public Broadcasting’s ½ hour Clifftop Documentary at the age of 12, and more recently, a documentary on old-time fiddling from Clay County, WV. Tessa made her debut at The Grand Ole Opry in late summer 2024, where she payed homage to her home town, playing the tune “Durang’s Hornpipe”.

She released her first old-time fiddle album in 2018, titled “It’s Hard to Love”, flanked by fellow West Virginia musicians Jesse Milnes and Kim Johnson. That same year, Tessa won 1st place in the traditional band contest at the Appalachian Stringband Festival (Clifftop) with her band, Big Possum Stringband. They went on to release a self-titled album in 2019, were featured on NPR’s Mountain Stage, and toured across both the US and Australia that summer. In addition to her solo endeavors, Tessa has a new local old-time project – The State Birds – which is comprised of some of West Virginia’s finest old-time musicians (Chance McCoy, Cody Jordan, Jesse Milnes, Joanna Burt-Kinderman). The State Birds released their debut single, West Virginia Hornpipe, in 2024. She also fiddles in The Jesse Milnes Band (electric classic country).

Ben Nelson

Ben Nelson grew up in a family of old-time musicians in the mountains of southwest Virginia. A passionate educator and community builder, he has worked as an elementary school science instructor, naturalist, traditional music teacher, and square dance caller. Ben has taught music and dance at Warren Wilson College, the Junior Appalachian Musicians program, and traditional music camps throughout the U.S. He was a founding member of the prize-winning string band The Moose Whisperers, and studied traditional music abroad as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow.

Joe Seamons

Joe Seamons is a musician and educator based in Seattle and dedicated to helping people connect with their heritage through music and storytelling. As co-founder of The Rhapsody Project, he builds communities that serve and center young people while establishing cultural equity. Alongside non-profit partners Totem Star and Red Eagle Soaring, Joe helped establish The Station Space, a new youth arts hub. As part of the leadership team of Black & Tan Hall, Joe has worked since 2016 to establish the Black-led, multi-cultural cooperative that now stewards a 3,000 square foot performance venue in South Seattle.

Born and raised in Columbia County, Oregon, Joe interprets the songs and stories of the local sawmill, logging, and fishing ballads composed by the elder working people and folklorists who helped raise him. Many of these songs are included on his 2016 album, Timberbound. In the same vein, Joe directed and served as executive producer for a Smithsonian Folkways album entitled, “Roll, Columbia: Woody Guthrie’s 26 Northwest Songs.”

Joe’s work to interpret, document, and reflect upon the ethos of Northwest folk songs and stories—post-colonization—continues regularly on The Rhapsody Project’s blog.

Through his mother’s side of the family, Joe is a descendant of the Aurora Colony, making him a fifth-generation Oregonian. His surname is the legacy of a family of English farmers who lived since (at least) the 1490’s the small community of Weedon, an old English name meaning, “pagan shrine on a hill.” Through his music, teaching, and writing, Joe is on a mission to address and transform the legacy of colonization that led to so many conditions of his existence. 

In his multi-instrumental duo with fellow songster, Ben Hunter, Joe has toured internationally and been recognized by the Ethnic Heritage Council for excellence in ethnic performance and significant contributions to the development and presentation of the traditional cultural arts in the Pacific Northwest. 

Learn more about Joe at www.joebanjo.net

Earl White

Earl White has been a fixture in the old time music community for nearly 50 years. He is one of the founding members of the Green Grass Cloggers and remains one of the few Black Americans carrying on the string band tradition.

Earl is known for his broad collection of tunes and his driving style. He and his band recorded a set for the virtual festival IBMA Bluegrass Live powered by PNC. They later came down to Raleigh for the in person events in 2022 and 2023.