Each year, Easyfolk selects a number of independent artists to feature. These artists will form a close community of support for one another and build off of each other's momentum. Throughout the year, easyfolk will provide each artist
with community building and performance opportunities.
Hannah
sumner
There is an era-less clarity to Hannah Sumner’s voice, a belltower resonance that’s as at home echoed over ancient cobblestones as it is amplified across Madison Square Garden crowds. The songwriter’s ethereal lilt is grounded by a career that spans genres and coastlines, a gift for creating community, and a knack for penning lyrics that carefully cradle the weight of our deep-planted truths. In the ceilingless expanse of Hannah’s voice, we find our own permission to bloom – a timely reminder that the veil between the present and the possible is now, and has always been, enchantingly thin.
Valdoria
Valdoria’s molten-river voice has a way of carving landscapes. The volcanic force of her belting range and a seismic sense of rhythm create perfect terrain for the songwriter’s unique lyrical universe: unabashedly simmering, pushing at edges, forging something new. There is a fearlessness to Valdoria’s soul-soaked folk that nudges the listener right up to the cliff-drop, then shakes the ground beneath them. But make no mistake - any tectonic tumble you take here will be less fall than flight.
Bobby Jo
Valentine
Bobby Jo Valentine is the hug you kinda knew you needed. Pack your heaviest baggage, because when Bobby Jo generously cracks his heart wide open on stage for you to witness, you can’t help but come away feeling recognized, welcomed, and undeniably lighter. Bobby Jo weaves safe spaces out of troubadour tenderness, warmed by the hearth of his homecoming tenor and cornerstoned by the wisdom of his own long and winding journey. Each earnest, honest story sung is part campfire revolution, part autopsy, part devotional - hopeful, unflinching, and comfortingly certain we’re part of something so much bigger, so much better, than we know.
Nathan
Earle
There’s a shadow of the rambling man archetype in the set of Nathan Earle’s shoulders when he picks up his guitar. Train-car poet lyrics, worn flannel, and a rye-soaked voice paint the moving picture of a travel-weary storyteller, but a closer listen reveals the hard-won hopeful heart of a father, the subtle-skilled fingers of a lifelong musician, and a bone-deep respect for the place and the privilege of home. With the truth in one hand and a tale in the other, Nathan walks the tightrope of self-deprecating wit and forthright witness with the sort of dexterity that lets listeners relax into the balance and simply enjoy the show.
River Tramps
Members: Adam Benjamin, Rio Martine
There’s no intimacy quite like van life, and the years Rio and Adam have spent together on the open road reveal themselves in their layers of shared-heartbeat harmony, nesting doll guitar plucks, and the kind of knowing laughter we all ache to be invited into. Luckily, an invitation is exactly what Rio and Adam extend. Each song feels like the start of a carefully curated beat poet mixtape, and an evening with these two becomes a sweet, close-quarters musical road trip, complete with good stories to follow down the sideroads and the safety of knowing it’s okay to wander. Rio’s wide-horizon voice is our compass, Adam’s deep-rooted tone is our map, and as long as we’re chasing the truth down together, wherever we wind up is bound to feel like home.
Falcon
Heart
Members: Marcus Glaze, Aaron derosso, Jean mastaler
In an alchemical magic that’s part golden era 90s country and part pub-born roots music ruckus, Aaron DeRosso, Jean Mastaler, and Marcus Logan Glaze collide their voices and instruments in the organized cacophony that is Falcon Heart. This is music you want to listen to surrounded by your most comfortable friends, wearing shoes that dance easy, in the sort bar where no one will care - or maybe even notice - if you lose yourself and spill your beer. Jubilant harmonies lift complex compositions to a fervor that pulls listeners up out of their seats, up out of their funk, and up into a bouncing joy-mob that few of us can resist and none of us will regret.
Ned & Wendy
The Band
Members: Lindsey Plotner, Jordan Plotner
It’s easy to believe Lindsey and Jordan see the world a little more clearly than the rest of us. Armed with quickdraw smiles, an endearing penchant for quirk, and a slight-of-hand ability to transform the familiar, the duo behind Ned & Wendy the Band invite audiences through the looking glass and into a world of dreamscape arrangements, whimsical storytelling, and heart-skip rhythm changes. In their glam-folk wonderland, empathy is celebrated, laughter is plentiful, and connection ignites into dance-it-out harmony. Whoever you are, wherever you’ve come from, Ned & Wendy the Band is here to remind you there’s always a place you belong.
"The Featured artist program is about community and the joy of music. it's about finding people
to collaborate with, to share in successes, to commiserate in the difficulties, and to relish
in each other's company"
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- Flyover States, 2024 Easyfolk Featured Artist