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Long before there was a computer on every desk, Seamus was providing "interactive entertainment" to delighted audiences from one end of the country to another. He is quick with a quip and likes nothing better than to discover someone in the audience who is similarly inclined. He makes it all seem so effortless that it is easy to miss that he is a superb instrumentalist with an apparently infinite repertoire. The depth of his musicality allows him to tailor his show to the audience before him, whether it be children, families or adults.

Originally from Belfast in Northern Ireland, he sings the music of his native land with emotion born of knowing its history firsthand. But he is far from simply a singer of Celtic songs. Fast-paced humor is very much a part of what Seamus does, whether he's telling a series of rapid-fire jokes or launching into a lyrical parody. He will segue seamlessly from an Irish ballad about a dying town to a rollicking reel and then move into American music, equally at home with folk, pop, country or traditional. Throughout it all, he is having such a grand time that you can't help but want to join in.

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The Dave Rowe Trio presents a fresh take on the folk scene with powerful three-part harmonies, instrumental virtuosity, exciting showmanship, and keen songwriting. They respectfully build on tradition to move the music into a new groove. Dave Rowe has a strong heritage to draw on, having grown up immersed in music. His father was Tom Rowe, Schooner Fare's bass player, whose driving rhythms laid the foundation for that group's robust sound. His mother taught music.

Tom Rowe's abiding joy in the music infected his son. At 12, Dave took up the tuba (!) and got formal training on piano and keyboard before having his dad teach him the electric bass. By 15, he was making money making music as the bass player with the Makem Brothers, Tommy Makem's sons. At 19, he picked up a guitar for the first time, then moved on to learning banjo and mandolin. In 1993, the Rowe men did the most natural thing in the world and formed Rowe by Rowe. When they added Danny Breau in 1998, they became Turkey Hollow. This configuration toured extensively until Dave lost his dad to cancer early in 2004.

Dave scoured Maine to find musicians to breathe new life into a different configuration. He first found Kevin O'Reilly, an electric bass player with a background in rock music. Kevin provides a strong underpinning to the DRT sound while hanging on to his rock sensibilities. In addition to trio work, he explores the boundaries of bass guitar with his solo music. FACE magazine says, "O'Reilly is to be commended for pushing the bass guitar beyond where whoever created it in the first place imagined it might go." Listen to Kevin!

The trio was rounded out with Ed Howe, a fiddle wunderkind who first picked up an instrument at the age of four. He was initially drawn to bluegrass but also moved easily into Celtic, rock, funk, electronica and groove. His dazzling breaks and innovative interpretations of material have brought audiences to their feet more than once. Listen to Ed!

This unique group uses Steinberger solid body instruments instead of acoustic instruments in the playing of traditional folk, Celtic, Bluegrass, and original music. The Steinberger instruments optimize the acoustic sound for the electronic age with true close-your-eyes-and-it's-acoustic tone. Music had always been a passion for Dave; now he is continuing and expanding on a legacy so well begun.

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Toby Walker is an accomplished fingerstyle guitarist, who is also adept at ragtime and bottleneck. His mastery of the art was recognized in Memphis in 2002, when he won the International Blues Challenge Award. He is a skilled singer and songwriter, drawing inspiration from traditional and contemporary blues, folk, ragtime, and country. His passion for the music drove him to leave an apartment crammed full of recordings, books and instruments to wander around the Mississippi Delta, Virginia and the Carolinas tracking down some of the more obscure - but immensely talented - music makers of an earlier era. He spent time and swapped tunes with Eugene Powell, James Son Thomas, Etta Baker, and R.L Burnside. He draws on these travels to tell the humorous and heartwarming tales of learning the blues at the feet of these old time musicians. You can catch some of the flavor of these stories on his website in the Visit the South section. His fifth CD, Plays Well with Others, came out in 2006.

Toby has been eagerly received in concert halls, festivals, coffeehouses throughout the U.S., England and France. Having educated himself in the genre, he loves sharing his knowledge with others and performs extensively in libraries and schools. He teaches at Jorma Kaukonen's Fur Peace Ranch in Ohio. In 2006, Carnegie Hall has hired him to augment and teach in their "American Roots" program aimed at honor level middle school students. This one-of-a-kind series demonstrates the history of blues music and how it tells the story of African Americans as they migrated from the south into the north.

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Mild-mannered and soft-spoken, PAT WICTOR exudes a sense of calm, a man at peace with his place on the planet. Once onstage, however, he launches into his carefully crafted tunes that careen through a myriad of moods. He can turn a room into a revival meeting with a hope-infused anthem or evoke stark images of life's dark underbelly. Critics comment on the clarity of his vocals which soar in celebration or drip with irony with equal effectiveness. Steeped in American "roots" music, Pat finds inspiration in the rural country, gospel, and blues traditions of our nation, much of which he explored while living outside U.S. borders. An American by birth, Pat was raised in Venezuela, the Netherlands, Norway and England until his teenage years.

Pat took a convoluted path to folk music, winding his way through rock, heavy metal and jazz. He started with guitar, shifted to bass, moved to saxophone and then quit music entirely before returning in 1993, when he also began composing songs. Intrigued by lap slide guitar, he concentrated his efforts there and emerged as a master player in slide technique. In 2003, he stepped out into the clubs and found a receptive audience waiting for him. He launched his most fully realized effort to date, Sunset Waltz, his fourth solo CD, in 2008.

He is inclusive in his music, embracing the material of others while adding his distinct sonic signature. His own songs have a warmth and texture born of a deep commitment to his musical calling. "I continually incorporate what I've learned from other genres: the listening skills, improvisional energy and adventure of jazz, the intensity and rhythmic drive of heavy metal, the awareness of form, balance and narrative arc of classical music." explains Pat.

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Think Yin and Yang, opposites attract and all those men trying to get in touch with their feminine side - each an example of how we seek out and embrace our oppositional counterparts for completeness.   Toby Walker and Pat Wictor's Blues at the Crossroads: Saints and Sinners celebrates the varied, often contradictory, faces of the Blues.  Toby's forte is the more traditional Blues sound: a low-down, earthy growl about people coping with hard times and bad choices.  Pat finds inspiration in both Blues and Gospel where redemption is within reach for all.  On stage, the contrast is just as great.  Pat, tall and lean with a cascade of red hair, blends wry humor and a generosity of spirit as he welcomes people to his world.  Toby is more compact with an infectious laugh and a sense of coiled energy on stage as he narrates his musical odyssey.

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