Carmen Sclafani, professionally known as Wiser Time, is a vocalist, songwriter, guitarist and producer from New Jersey, USA. His work has received recognition for it’s soulful vocals and musical style which consists of concept albums that blend rock, Americana, blues and folk influences. Wiser Time’s debut album was There And Back Again (2006), followed by All For One (2008), Beggars And Thieves (2010), XII (2012) and Within (2017). Wiser Time just released a new EP titled, Worlds Collide (2020).

Bonnie Raitt’s career began with her self-titled release in 1971 and for five decades now, her distinctive mellow voice and slide guitar skills have influenced folk, rock, country and blues. Her 10 Grammy awards, including wins as Top Female Pop Vocalist, Best Rock Vocal and Rock Instrumental Performances, are a testament to her versatility. Bonnie also came in at 50 in the top 100 singers and at 89 in the top 100 guitarists. Her early success gave way to a less prolific period in the 80s. She began a comeback when she appeared as one of the female background vocalists for Roy Orbison on a well viewed television special. Work on a Disney compilation album led her to producer Don Was, and she made a roaring comeback with her 1989 album Nick of Time, which won the 1990 Grammy for Album of the Year. The album’s title song, along with singles "Have a Heart," and "Thing Called Love," all spent time on the Billboard charts. Her Grammy win that same year, for Best Traditional Blues recording, was awarded to her collaboration with John Lee Hooker for the song "In the Mood." Their duet appeared on his album titled The Healer. Raitt continued on a successful path in the 1990s and early 2000s, and she was recognized by the music industry in early 2000 when she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Since then she has released Slipstream in 2012, for which she won a Grammy for Best Americana Album.

Rhiannon Giddens is a celebrated artist who excavates the past to reveal truths about our present. A MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient, Giddens has been Grammy-nominated six times, and won once, for her work with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a group she co-founded. Pitchfork has said of her “few artists are so fearless and so ravenous in their exploration,” and Smithsonian Magazine calls her “an electrifying artist who brings alive the memories of forgotten predecessors, white and black.”

2014 marks 25 years since the formation of the Grammy Award winning roots-music trio Nickel Creek, dormant since 2007. Violinist Sara Watkins, mandolinist Chris Thile, and guitarist Sean Watkins agreed that they should commemorate this milestone with at least a few concerts, a festival date here or there, and maybe an EP of new tunes to play at the shows. But when they convened in June at Chris’s New York City apartment for a few days of writing, their creative synergy returned with a vengeance. These practically life-long friends immediately realized they had an album’s worth of tunes in hand.

“We fell into step very quickly,” Sara recalls.” We felt like we had started right up again. Each of us seemed happy with the direction of the songs we were writing and the contributions all around. It was just really fun. We were excited enough about what we were coming up with to really go for it and make a proper recording and do a proper tour. We wanted to make it a real step forward. And that’s what we did.”

After the close of their Farewell (For Now) tour in 2007, which culminated at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Nickel Creek was not actually contemplating a break-up, as many in its large fan-base feared. These still startlingly young band-mates simply needed some time to grow up, musically and personally, away from the glare of the spotlight they’d shared since they were kids. Sara and Chris were merely eight years old when they and the 12 year-old Sean played their first gig as Nickel Creek at a San Diego pizza parlor, having been brought together by a mutual music teacher. Chris’s dad played bass. After ten years of work on the contemporary bluegrass circuit, the prodigious trio landed a deal with the independent Sugar Hill Records, championed by violinist Alison Krauss, who would produce Nickel Creek’s first two Sugar Hill releases, its self-titled 2000 debut, and the 2002 follow-up This Side, which garnered a Best Contemporary Folk Album Grammy.

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