Events

John Bachkosky and Kevin Strasser grew up in Severna Park, Maryland, where they met and worked together on a few musical projects, including their first band, DeD Walrus, and Severna Park High School’s Rock N Roll Revival. The two then met Greg Mazur during their time at the University of Maryland. After graduating, The Bards were born.   In November of 2021, The Bards released their self-titled first album, The Bards, which features orchestral elements and strong three-part harmonies in addition to their signature progressive folk rock style. Along with their growing list of original material, The Bards play a wide range of rock covers and Irish folk tunes.  On April 28, 2023, the Bards will release The Bards Crawl, a five-song EP consisting of traditional Irish folk tunes. The first four songs are available now on all streaming services!  This Summer, The Bards will release We’ve Got This Covered, a collection of their favorite and most popular covers from their 2022 shows.

Bill Toms is a Pittsburgher singer-songwriter and guitarist. Along with his band Hard Rain, they played primarily rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and blues. Hard Rain was founded in 1996 as a side project to Toms’s regular job as guitarist with Joe Grushecky and The Houserockers.  In 2006 Toms ventured out on his own, quitting the job as guitarist for The Houserockers to concentrate on a solo career. A series of albums followed. Bill Toms and Hard Rain continue to tour the United States, Canada, and Europe.  His ninth full-length studio release, Good For My Soul, is a blend of soul, blues, gospel, and rock and roll, brought together by stories of everyday men and women.  Rick Witkowski of Crack The Sky and B.E. Taylor have engineered, produced, and co-produced Bill Toms and Hard Rain with the help of Will Kimbrough since their first album Paradise Avenue in 1997. As a solo artist, Toms has opened for Buddy Guy, Levon Helm, Marshall Crenshaw, Steve Forbert.

Shelly McCombie has been performing in the Tri-State Area for over 44 years.  Shelly began performing in local clubs at the age of 13 in a family group called the McRobs.  The McRobs consisted of her father, her sister Valerie, her Uncle Mel, her cousin Lenny, and a good friend, Ruth McKnight.  While attending Penn State and California University, receiving her Bachelors Degree in Education, Shelly would make it home every weekend to play music.
Through the years, Shelly has participated in a variety of country bands such as The Midnight Ramblers, High Chaparral and Pittsburgh based band, Gypsy Wind.  Shelly began her own band in 1990.  Shelly has shared the stage with several Nashville recording artists such as Martina McBride, Wynonna, Marty Stuart, Waylon Jennings and Toby Keith, just to name a few.  Shelly has also worked with several Pittsburgh artists such as The Corbin-Hanner Band, Norman Nardini, Larry Lee Jones, and jazz musician, Joe Negri.
Shelly has performed to standing room only crowds at numerous fairs, festivals and country nightspots across the Tri-state area.  Award winning is something that comes natural to Shelly.  Through the years, Shelly has received 1st place awards in True Value Hardware and Wrangler Country Showdowns in addition to 1st place awards in several Tri-State Battle of the Bands contests.  The In Pittsburgh Magazine also voted Shelly #1 Female Country Vocalist.
In performances, Shelly has captivated audiences with her Patsy Cline renditions and has brought them to their feet with Motown artists such as Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight and the Pips.  

Singer-songwriter Megan Bee writes with an unquenchable wanderlust and a deep love for the land.  Her 2022 album “Cottonwood” has been called “as real as it gets – a raw and real telling of engaging, relatable stories.”  The track Never Known received an Honorable Mention in American Songwriter’s lyric contest.

Her previous album “Waiting” (2020) earned The Ark of Music album of the year.   Bee has won The Ohio Music Awards Best Americana and Best Singer-Songwriter Albums along with a finalist spot in the USA Songwriting Competition.

Her music is a blend of distinctly homespun vocals, acoustic simplicity, yearning soulfulness, and winsome storytelling. Her background as an environmental educator, traveling farmhand, and vagabond once took her into a desert wilderness where she found her voice around a campfire.  She bases out of the rolling hills of Athens, Ohio and draws influence from the collision of Appalachian folk and modern songwriting.

After seven years of fronting the popular Appalachian Stompgrass band The Wild Rumpus at countless festivals, concerts and clubs including Merlefest, Bristol Rhythm and Roots, and the AMA (American Music Association) as well as writing nearly all of the songs for their 3 studio albums, Andrew has now firmly established his own voice with the release of his 4th solo album. “Who I Am” on Mountain Soul Records.
Andrew is not only a talented singer songwriter, he is held in high regard as performer by his peers. Often accompanied by his close friend, bass player and long time collaborator Clint Lewis, his performances leave a lasting impression. Here’s what Amanda Platt of the Honey Cutters had to say. “His onstage presence is the perfect mix of humor and humility, putting his audience at ease and drawing them into a songscape that originates in the Mountains of West Virginia and stretches to include the emotions and experiences that people of every corner of the country can relate to”.

Beloved local musician, Scott Alexander, will be gracing our stage for a wonderfully relaxing brunch show. Soulful, talented and humorous, Scott is everything you need in an acoustic show. His songs run the full range of classics to contemporary. Folk, rock and Americana are his bread and butter, but the occasional eclectic choice pops up to keep your ears perked. A member of the well-known Terah Crawford Band, Scott has appeared at all the major venues and few of the smaller ones throughout the region and his smiling face is welcome everywhere he sets up to play.

The Matt Barranti Band originally formed in 1991 as an Allman Brothers/Southern Rock Tribute Band and went on to survive nearly three decades while going through many changes over the years. They can no longer be classified as a “tribute” band, the MBB has developed its own unique style, stunning audiences with their brand of Blues Rock all over the tristate area.
The band features Matt Barranti on Lead Guitar, Slide Guitar, and vocals; Greg McIltrot on Drums, Vocals, and Harmonica; Fred Delu on Keyboards and Willy Franklin on Bass. Each band member brings a lifetime of experience and talent to the table. Together, they have forged a musical identity that has inspired devotion from not only Blues fans, but also anyone who loves music that emanates from the soul.
In December 2016, the British Blues-Rock legendary band, Foghat, asked Matt to fill in for Bryan Bassett on their tour. When he returned home, MBB entered and won the Western Pennsylvania Blues Challenge, and went on to Memphis for the International Blues Challenge.
Matt is also “Earl #6” in Roger Earl’s band, Earl and the Agitators.
The Matt Barranti Band is currently in the studio working on new material.

  Jeff Miller knew early on that music was in his blood. He started playing violin at five years old, and by eight was showing a serious aptitude for music. It wasn’t until age thirteen, though, that he found his true calling – guitar. He pawned all of his video games, went down to the local music store and bought a used Kramer guitar. Soon after he added his first acoustic guitar – an Alvarez – to his collection. There was no looking back.

Jeff’s aptitude grew throughout high school, where he produced and recorded his first album with a group of friends. Later, Jeff would attend his first Phil Keaggy show. Legendary among guitarists, Keaggy’s unique approach to the acoustic guitar had a strong influence on Jeff. This influence resulted in his long-standing affection for combining live performance with cutting edge technology. The result was Jeff’s innovative live looping technique. What is live looping? Basically, it’s a process by which a musician can record a phrase live, in front of an audience, and immediately play it back in repetition. While this phrase continues to repeat, the musician can record another “loop” to play along with the original. This process can be repeated multiple times, creating dense, layered compositions mimicking the sound multiple musicians and backing vocalists. Over the years, Jeff has adopted this technique into his core style, adding the elements of songwriting and expression alongside the technical prowess required.

Bob is a known commodity in the music scene around here. Playing music for as long as he can remember, he is skilled in several instruments and has been a pillar of the bluegrass and Americana community. This Sunday will be absolutely stunning solo showcase of his hammered dulcimer skills. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the hammered dulcimer….. The hammered dulcimer (also called the hammer dulcimer) is a percussion–stringed instrument which consists of strings typically stretched over a trapezoidal resonant sound board. The hammered dulcimer is set before the musician, who in more traditional styles may sit cross-legged on the floor, or in a more modern style may stand or sit at a wooden support with legs. The player holds a small spoon-shaped mallet hammer in each hand to strike the strings. The Graeco-Roman dulcimer (“sweet song”) derives from the Latin dulcis (sweet) and the Greek melos (song). The dulcimer, in which the strings are beaten with small hammers, originated from the psaltery, in which the strings are plucked.