John Platt’s “On Your Radar”

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feat. Jefferson Berry & the Urban Acoustic Coalition, Heather Lloyd, Bob Bradshaw

In 2006, at around 3am at the Falcon Ridge Festival, Jefferson and his banjo playing brother Hank were playing a Hillbilly version of “White Room” by Cream. In fest-jam fashion, each vocal verse was separated by an instrumental-lead verse. Out and of the shadows and into the light of the campfire came this guy with a mandolin and long red hair, playing the song’s iconic Clapton lead pretty much verbatim. As the sun was coming up, Jefferson asked Bud Burroughs if he wanted to start a band and Hippies and Hillbillies was born. The album Drumless America was recorded in Bud’s living room: a quirky mix of covers ranging from Robert Earl Keen and Townes Van Zandt to Neil Young and U2, the show and CD was fun for some, but considered blasphemous at the bluegrass festivals the band played.

Recovering reporter, performance poet and fairy tale collector turned songwriter, Heather Aubrey Lloyd has co-fronted Baltimore’s ilyAIMY for nearly two decades. Traveling the country playing everything from bait shops to clothing-optional resorts, Lloyd’s lyrical collection of stories became her first solo studio effort, “A Message in the Mess.” Populated by Hippie Tooth Faeries and Jackson Pollock reincarnated as a flock of scatological pigeons … each narrative is offered up in her passionate, “sing-me-the-phone-book” alto. Her finger-picked guitar says folk. Her lyrics show the influence of Baltimore's slam poetry scene. Her hand percussion says world music. "Janis Joplin ... and Joni Mitchell blended together," says The Montgomery Caller. With its inventive arrangements and delightfully bizarre percussion (yes, that really is recorded bubble wrap), “Mess” received the Director's Award for Album of the Year from the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest, and the awards haven't stopped since: 2018 No Depression Magazine Songwriting Award Finalist, 2018 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival MOST WANTED Artist, 2018 National Women's Music Festival Emerging Artist, 2017 Telluride Troubadour Top 4. She is also the reigning Grand Prize winner of the prestigious Bernard Ebb Songwriting Award. While the current socially distanced climate has cancelled most of her live shows, Lloyd is planning to release new music in 2021, featuring songs about mental health, the plight of refugees, and aging gracefully.

Bob Bradshaw is a storyteller. And like any good storyteller, he possesses the ability to transform himself right before your very eyes, to not only craft a compelling cast of characters, but to inhabit them with complete and utter conviction. Take a listen to Bradshaw’s captivating new album, The Ghost Light, and you’ll find a true chameleon at work. One moment he’s an impulsive daredevil plunging over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel; the next, a sea-weary pirate lured to his death by a choir of sirens. More often than not, though, he’s simply one of us, just an ordinary, everyday soul searching for meaning, hope, and redemption wherever he can find it.