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Tommy Emmanuel’s unerring sense of groove marked him as Australia’s youngest rhythm guitarist and by the time he made it to the big city in his late teens, Tommy was a rock star — and for good reason.

Influenced by the Merle Travis and Chet Atkins fingerstyle of guitar picking, Emmanuel developed a style of solo guitar playing that encompasses the range of a whole band without loop pedals or overdubs, just one man and ten fingers. For many players, technical mastery would overwhelm the emotion of the music, but for Tommy Emmanuel, the approach to a song is emotion first, his music the embodiment of his soulful spirit, sense of hope and his love for entertaining. He has received numerous awards, including two Grammy nominations.

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For nearly half a century, David Grisman has been a guiding force in the evolving world of acoustic music. His musical range is wide and deep, embracing many styles, genres, and traditions. An acoustic pioneer and innovator, Grisman has forged a unique personal artistic path, skillfully combining elements of jazz and bluegrass with many international flavors and sensibilities to create his own distinctive music.  

Grisman discovered the mandolin as a teenager growing up in New Jersey and learned to play in the style of Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass music. His interests spread to jazz while playing in a folk-rock group, Earth Opera.

After recording for major and independent labels, Grisman founded Acoustic Disc in 1990 and entered the most prolific period of his career, producing 67 critically acclaimed CDs, five of which were Grammy-nominated.

The artists will perform onstage together.

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Since the release of his 2004 critically acclaimed CD When I Fall In Love, Chris Botti has become the largest-selling American instrumental artist. His success has crossed over to audiences usually reserved for pop music and his ongoing association with PBS has led to four #1 jazz albums, as well as multiple Gold, Platinum, and Grammy Awards. Performing worldwide and selling more than four million albums, he has found a form of creative expression that begins in jazz and expands beyond the limits of any single genre.

Over the past three decades, Botti has recorded and performed with the best in music, including Sting, Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, John Mayer, Andrea Bocelli, Joshua Bell, and many of the finest symphonies at some of the world’s most prestigious venues.

Botti plays with a uniquely expressive sound and soaring musical imagination and through his discography and touring, continues to establish himself as one of the important, innovative figures of the contemporary music world.

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Almost everyone in Hawaii has strummed a ukulele at one time or another. But at the age of 14, Jake Shimabukuro realized that he was doing something different with the four-stringed instrument. His wholly unique approach to the ukulele started early. Growing up in Honolulu, Shimabukuro started playing the instrument at the age of four. He learned the basics from his mother then developed his craft by studying under ukulele masters. As he matured, Shimabukuro also found inspiration from guitar players, drummers, pianists, and singers. Even athletes helped fuel the intensity of his artistic fire.

In 2005, Shimabukuro’s career really came to life with a video on YouTube. “I didn’t even know what YouTube was at the time, so I was totally surprised when people started telling me they’d seen a video of me playing ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps,’” he says. “Before I got a chance to check it out myself, the video had gone viral and a lot of music industry folks seemed to know about it. It was crazy!” Shimabukuro’s deeply beautiful and original take on George Harrison’s love ballad opened the floodgates.

Since then, Shimabukuro’s records have topped the Billboard World Music Charts on numerous occasions. He’s played with world-renowned orchestras and at prestigious venues such as the Hollywood Bowl, Lincoln Center, and the Sydney Opera House.

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Gabriel Royal got his start as a busker on the New York City subway, but the Oklahoma-born, Brooklyn-based musician has emerged as a trailblazing talent with inimitable style and enviable range. He’s performed at NYC’s top music venues, played to sold-out crowds in countries around the world, and collaborated with some of the industry’s most in-demand names. Known for his soaring vocals, hum-along melodies, and lush arrangements, Royal, a classically trained musician, is among a select number of artists combining cello and voice.

Royal plays his ‘grown-up lullabies’ in the subway stations of New York City where he continues to find a genuine connection with his inspiration: the commuters of New York. Influenced by Stevie Wonder’s groove and Burt Bacharach’s jazzy yet poppy sensitivities, along with other contemporary artists such as John Legend, Hiatus Coyote, Flying Lotus, James Blake, Janelle Monae and Thundercat, Gabriel’s trademark sound is all his own.

In 2016, Royal released his first album, a self-titled project that he mostly wrote while performing underground. Despite the album’s humble beginnings, it established Royal as a singer-songwriter with extraordinary sensitivity and creative intuition. His sophomore release, Miss Once in a Blue Moon, was released in 2018. The album features sweeping melodies, soulful ballads, and layered harmonies along with plenty of bright, toe-tapping numbers that will make you want to sing along.

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Over the course of 30 years in Nashville, Brent Rowan has played with countless pop and country artists to record more than 15,000 sessions. As a producer, Rowan has released multiple gold and platinum records.

Rowan will be joined by Pat McLaughlin. Since the late 1970s Pat McLaughlin has been gigging and recording with the best in the business. A regular collaborator with John Prine, McLaughlin was a two-time nominee at the 2019 Grammy awards for songs recorded by the artist. The Chicago Sun-Times has proclaimed, “No one since Dan Penn has better-mixed ‘60s soul idioms with country music sentiment. Pat McLaughlin is an American treasure.”

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Robert Cray has been bridging the lines between blues, soul, and R&B for the past four decades. He has won five Grammys, been inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, and received the Americana Lifetime achievement award. In just over 40 years, Cray and his band have recorded 20 studio releases, 15 of which have been on the Billboard charts. They have also brought high energy soul, rock, and blues to concert halls, festivals, and arenas around the world.

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Opening set with Nikki Lane begins at 7 p.m.

Beginning with their first LP, the RIAA gold-certified Everything All The Time, Band of Horses has positioned themselves as a mainstay for more than a decade. The band has released five studio albums in total, including Grammy-nominated “Infinite Arms,” “Mirage Rock,” produced by the legendary Glyn Johns, and most recently, “Why Are You Ok,” executive produced by the illustrious Rick Rubin. Formed and led by singer and songwriter Ben Bridwell, the South Carolina-based band has given us a multitude of much-loved singles, including “The Funeral” and “No One’s Gonna Love You.” They have also played globe-spanning headline tours with greats like Pearl Jam and Neil Young.

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At the age of 14, Joey Alexander has already recorded two Grammy-nominated studio albums. With his third studio effort, Eclipse, Alexander takes another giant step forward, demonstrating his aptitude as a composer, bandleader, and musician. As a jazz pianist, Alexander is neither flashy nor bombastic. He approaches the instrument with discipline and possesses an elemental sense of melody. Alexander will perform at Strings in a jazz trio.

Born in 2003 in Bali, Alexander moved to New York City in 2014, where he has experienced one of the most ascendant careers ever seen in jazz.

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Mipso is born from North Carolina’s broad range of disparate musical influences. Their distinctly unique sound is an undeniable alchemy of the historical musical traditions of the rural south and their progressive home of Chapel Hill.

A discernible and rising force in the upstart musical genre known as Americana, Mipso’s music is lush and forward moving. A tender, harmony-laden river runs through the band’s core, but the rocky outcroppings change with every album. Appalachia melds with modern alt-country, hints of folk-rock are leavened with a sly and subversive sense of humor, and underneath it all is a genuine and moving passion for the ever-evolving traditions of Americana. With the recent release of the band’s fifth album, Edges Run (April 2018/Anti-Fragile Music), Mipso continues the complex dance of looking back and moving forward with grace and beauty.

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Opening set with Siobhan Wilson begins at 7 p.m.

Widely regarded as one of the most brilliant songwriters of her generation, Suzanne Vega emerged as a leading figure of the folk-music revival of the early 1980s when she began performing contemporary folk in Greenwich Village clubs. Since the release of her self-titled, critically-acclaimed 1985 debut album, she has given sold-out concerts around the world and been lauded with numerous awards, including five Grammy nominations and a win. Bearing the stamp of a masterful storyteller, Vega’s songs have always tended to focus on city life, ordinary people, and real-world subjects. She will be joined onstage by Gerry Leonard. Known for his extensive work with David Bowie, Leonard’s ambient style serves as a perfect complement to Vega’s distinctive, clear voice.

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Born blind, Ronnie Milsap’s grandparents gave the boy over to the North Carolina State School for the Blind hoping for a better chance.  There, Milsap discovered music deviating from the school’s classical curriculum to explore the nascent realms of race music, rock and roll, and jazz.

It wasn’t long before Milsap was sharing bills with Ray Charles. In fact, 
it was Ray Charles who told the young pianist when he was offered a scholarship to Young Harris College’s law program, “Son, I can hear the music inside you…”

Fast forward through nights in Atlanta clubs, at the Whiskey on Sunset Strip, and through sessions in Memphis and Milsap has collected nearly every accolade possible. He’s had 40 number one hits and five decades of charted singles, won six Grammys, and earned the title of CMA Entertainer of the Year.

Always hungry for more, Milsap continues to evolve and inspire the biggest musicians of today. Even after decades of songwriting and performing, he lives to play.

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Mandolin Orange’s music radiates a mysterious warmth; their songs feel like whispered secrets, one hand cupped to your ear. The North Carolina duo have built a steady and growing fanbase with this kind of intimacy. Their latest album, Tides of A Teardrop, is the duo’s fullest, richest, and most personal effort. You can hear the air between them—the taut space of shared understanding, as palpable as a magnetic field, that makes their music sound like two halves of an endlessly completing thought. Singer-songwriter Andrew Marlin and multi-instrumentalist Emily Frantz have honed this lamp glow intimacy for years.

For this album, Marlin and Frantz enlisted their touring band, who they also worked with on their last album Blindfaller. Having recorded all previous albums live in the studio, they approached the recording process in a different way this time. “We went and did what most people do, which we’ve never done before. We just holed up somewhere and worked the tunes out together,” Frantz says. There are telepathy and warmth in the interplay on Tides of A Teardrop that brings a new dynamic to the foreground—that holy silence between notes, the air that charges the album with such profound intimacy. “This record is a little more cosmic, almost in a spiritual way. The space between the notes was there to suggest all those empty spaces the record touches on,” acknowledges Marlin.

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A protégé of the legendary jazz master Dizzy Gillespie, Arturo Sandoval was born in a small town on the outskirts of Havana, Cuba. Just two years after Gillespie became the first musician to bring Latin influences into American Jazz, Sandoval began studying classical trumpet and it didn’t take him long to catch the attention of the jazz world. He has since evolved into one of the world’s most acknowledged guardians of jazz trumpet and flugelhorn, as well as a renowned classical artist, pianist, and composer.

Sandoval has been recognized with ten Grammy Awards and nominated 19 times. He has also received six Billboard Awards and an Emmy Award. The latter for his composing work on the score of the HBO movie based on his life, “For Love or Country” that starred Andy Garcia as Sandoval. He is also the 2013 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Sandoval was a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning group Irakere, whose explosive mixture of jazz, classical, rock, and traditional Cuban music caused a sensation throughout the entertainment world. In 1981, he left Irakere to form his own band, which garnered enthusiastic praise from critics and audiences all over the world and continues to do so. Additionally, Sandoval is a renowned classical musician, performing regularly with the leading symphony orchestras from around the world.

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For more than four decades, John Hiatt has been defining himself as one of the finest songwriters of his generation. Since the release of his 1974 debut, Hangin’ Around the Observatory rarely has more than a year or two passed without a new Hiatt collection hitting the shelves. His newest album, The Eclipse Sessions, offers up some of his strongest songwriting and vocals to date.

Long celebrated as a skilled storyteller and keen observer of life’s twists and turns, Hiatt can get at the heart of an emotion or a moment in time with just a sharp, incisive lyric or witty turn of phrase. His newest release demonstrates that the singer-songwriter, now 66, is only getting better with age — his guitar playing becoming more rugged and rootsy, and his words wiser.

Since 2000 he’s been on a remarkable late-career run, releasing nine acclaimed studio albums and embarking on numerous tours in the U.S. and abroad. Hiatt will perform unaccompanied in an acoustic set in his Steamboat debut at Strings.

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After four decades in the international spotlight, the achievements of saxophonist Branford Marsalis continue to grow. From his initial recognition as a young jazz lion, he has expanded his vision as an instrumentalist, composer, bandleader, and educator, crossing stylistic boundaries while maintaining unwavering creative integrity. In the process, he has become an avatar of contemporary artistic excellence. He has collaborated with standout artists spanning many genres and taught in some of the world’s most prestigious music programs. He is the recipient of three Grammys and a citation as a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts.

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Open Seating with dance floor.

Ray Benson founded Asleep at the Wheel in Paw Paw, West Virginia 47 years ago. Now based in Austin, the band boasts ten Grammy awards, 20 studio albums, and 20 singles on the Billboard country charts. The Grammy Award-winning Still The King: Celebrating the Music of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys is the band’s most recent release and marks their third full-length Bob Wills tribute album. Featuring 22 acclaimed collaborations, the all-star line up includes legends such as Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, George Strait and newcomers like The Avett Brothers, Amos Lee, Old Crow Medicine Show, and many others.

Asleep at the Wheel continues to develop their sound and brings a fresh look and feel to Strings in 2019. Now traveling as an eight-piece band, recent additions Katie Shore (fiddle, vocals), Dennis Ludiker (fiddle, mandolin) Connor Forsyth (keyboard, vocals) and Josh Hoag (Bass) have instilled newfound energy and their own unique style within the band. Between those Texas twin fiddles and boogie piano, you can bet you’ll be dancin’ down the aisles and swingin’ all night long when the Wheel rolls into town.

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Shelby Lynne has recorded 15 albums, founded her own record label, and acted in both TV and in movies.

After high school, Lynne left Alabama for Nashville. There she found her first record deal and released three albums. In 1991, she won the Academy of Country Music’s Top New Female Vocalist award. After two more albums, Lynne released I Am Shelby Lynne, which she recorded on the Northern California coast. This earned her the Grammy for Best New Artist in 2000, an especially deserved accomplishment as she had been in the music business for nearly 13 years. Lynne will perform at Strings in a duo with guitarist and producer Ben Peeler, formerly of The Mavericks.

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Led by dynamic vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Lech Wierzynski, and drawing on diverse musical influences from Bay Area R&B, funk, Southern soul, Delta blues, and New Orleans second-line, the California Honeydrops bring vibrant energy and infectious dance-party vibes to their shows. They’ve toured with heavy-hitters such as Bonnie Raitt,  B.B. King, Allen Toussaint, Buddy Guy, and Dr. John. Whether in those high-profile performances or in more intimate venues where the band can leave the stage and get down on the dance floor, the California Honeydrops’ vision and purpose remain: to make the audience dance and sing.

The band has come a long way since guitarist and trumpeter Lech Wierzynkski and drummer Ben Malament started busking in an Oakland subway station but the band has stayed true to that organic, street-level feel. Lech’s vocal stylings are influenced by recordings of Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, and Louis Armstrong, as well as Oberlin College education and lessons from the club circuit in Oakland, California. With the additions of Johnny Bones on tenor sax and clarinet, Lorenzo Loera on keyboards, and Beau Bradbury on bass, they’ve built a powerful full-band sound and contagious energy.

More like parties than traditional concerts, their shows feature extensive off-stage jamming and crowd interaction. “The whole point is to erase the boundaries between the crowd and us,” Wierzynski says. “We don’t make setlists. We want requests. We want crowd involvement, to make people become a part of the whole thing by dancing along, singing, picking the songs and generally coming out of their shells.”

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It’s appropriate that Boz Scaggs‘ new album is Out of the Blues since the blues are what first sparked his five-decade musical career.

Born William Royce Scaggs in Canton, Ohio on June 8, 1944, he grew up in Oklahoma and Texas, where he spent his teenage years immersed in the blues, R, B and early rock ‘n’ roll. While attending school in Dallas, he played in local combos. After several years as a journeyman musician around Madison, WI and Austin, TX, Scaggs spent time traveling in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, eventually settling in Stockholm where he recorded the album Boz.

Returning to the U.S. in 1967, Scaggs joined the Steve Miller Band in San Francisco, performing on that group’s albums Children of the Future and Sailor, before launching his solo career with 1968’s seminal Boz Scaggs LP, recorded in Muscle Shoals, AL for Atlantic Records. Scaggs continued to mine a personalized mix of rock, blues and R&B influences, along with a signature style of ballads on such influential ’70s albums as Moments, Boz Scaggs & Band, My Time, Slow Dancer and 1976’s Silk Degrees. The latter release became a massive commercial breakthrough, reaching Number Two and remaining on the album charts for 115 weeks. It spawned three Top 40 hit singles: “It’s Over,” “Lido Shuffle” and the Grammy-winning “Lowdown.” Subsequently, “We’re All Alone” from that same album, would become a #1 single for Rita Coolidge. Silk Degrees was followed by the albums Down Two Then Left and Middle Man, and such hit singles as “Breakdown Dead Ahead,” “Jo Jo” and “Look What You’ve Done to Me.”

Despite his ’70s successes, Scaggs spent much of the 1980s out of the music-biz spotlight, traveling, opening a family business, fathering young children and founding the San Francisco nightclub, Slim’s, He returned to the studio after an 8-year hiatus and released, Other Roads, Some Change, Dig, the Grammy-nominated Come on Home, the unplugged Fade Into Light, the in-concert retrospective Greatest Hits Live as well as a stint touring with Donald Fagen’s New York Rock & Soul Review; all while continuing to maintain a loyal audience in the U.S. and overseas, particularly in Japan. A pair of albums of jazz standards, But Beautiful and Speak Low, the latter topping the Billboard Jazz chart, demonstrated Scaggs’ stylistic mastery, as did the Southern-flavored Memphis and the rhythm & bluesy A Fool to Care.