Specializing in quality roots and Americana music since 1978.

Northwest Folklife is a Seattle-based non-profit that celebrates the arts and cultures of the greater PNW, 365 days a year. 

Your Communities. Your Traditions. Your Folklife.

Our vision:
Strengthening our communities through arts & culture. 

Our Mission: 
Northwest Folklife creates opportunities for all to celebrate, share, and participate in the evolving cultural traditions of the Pacific Northwest.

After meeting at the crossroads of blues and folk music in the Pacific Northwest, Ben Hunter and Joe Seamons established themselves as a duo after their first year at the Pt. Townsend Acoustic Blues Festival in 2012. Delving deeper into their shared love of traditional and communal American musical styles, they developed their sound by adapting the arrangements of luminaries such as Blind Willie McTell to their main instruments: fiddle and banjo. 

The next year at Pt. Townsend, Dom Flemons (formerly of the Carolina Chocolate Drops) caught their act, and invited them to North Carolina to form a new trio. In the spring of 2013, they recorded an album with Flemons and began touring across the South. Joe and Ben's duo sound matured as they worked with Dom and explored the cultures that spawned the music they had come to love. Now, as they prepare to release their own album of blues, rags, folk songs and fiddle tunes, Joe and Ben have begun to fuse the gritty hollers of the south with the ethos of their home in the Pacific Northwest. Their debut album will be released November 14, 2014.

Vanguard Records, part of Concord Bicycle Music’s Fantasy Label Group, is one of the world’s leading independent record labels. Its eclectic roster of quality artists includes Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, Switchfoot, O.A.R., Flogging Molly, Parachute, Sallie Ford, Matt Nathanson, Chris Isaak, Barenaked Ladies, Greg Laswell, Trevor Hall, Indigo Girls, and more. It’s rich history of catalog artists features Levon Helm, Merle Haggard, Joan Baez, Mindy Smith, Buddy Guy, Big Mama Thornton, Junior Wells, John Fahey, to name a few.

Alan Lomax Archive and the Association for Cultural Equity.  Alan Lomax (1915-2002) folklorist and ethnomusicologist, recognized for his cultural advocacy, scholarly work, field collections, and public programs.

Ben Hunter &amp; Joe Seamons is following

Ben Hunter & Joe Seamons is following