Name: 2025 Country Blues and Jug Band Summit
Start: 2025-09-27T19:00:00-04:00
End: 2025-09-27T22:00:00-04:00
Location: Laurel Theater

This will be a uniqe mini-festival celebrating country blues and jug band music featuring Andy Cohen, The Knox County Jug Stompers, Y'uns, and Buck & Drew.
Andy Cohen grew up in a house with a piano and a lot of Dixieland Jazz records, amplified after a while by a cornet that his dad got him. At about fifteen, he got bitten by the Folk Music bug, and soon got to hear records by Big Bill Broonzy and the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, both of which reminded him of the music he grew up to. At sixteen, he saw Reverend Gary Davis, and his course was set. He knew he had it in him to follow, study, perform and promote the music of the southeast quadrant, America's great musical fountainhead. Although he's done other things, a certain amount of writing and physical labor from dish washing and railroading to archeology, playing the old tunes is what he does best. Andy's blues musician friends and influences: Willie Walker, Lemon Jefferson, Lead Belly, Reverend Gary Davis, Big Bill Broonzy, Skip James, Bukka White, Reverend Robert Wilkins, and Brownie McGhee
Formed in 2010 the Knox County Jug Stompers perform their version of jug band music mixing ragtime, country blues, folk, old time Appalachian, and more. The groups consist of Drew Fisher on banjo, harmonica, kazoo, and jug; Chris Bratta on drums and percussion; Stirling Walsh on banjolele and vocals; Buck Hoffman on guitar and vocals; Ken Bronson on fiddle; and Tom Cook on upright bass.
Y'uns are a good time band that blend jug band music with elements of swing, country, blues, and an eclectic mix of modern songwriters. Steve Wildsmith, writing for the Maryville-Alcoa Daily Times describes Y'uns as "pure, straight fun: 150 proof.... just chock full of old-timey honky-tonk barn-dance joy." Featuring Danny Gammon on mandolin, fiddle, vocals and jug; Steve Horton on guitar, kazoo, slide whistle and vocals; JP Reddick, guitar, kazoo and vocals; Will Ross on bass; and J. Miller on assorted percussion (including rubber chicken and washboard tie). Y'uns have appeared with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the Wiyos, Jim Kweskin and Geoff Muldaur. Y'uns have also been featured at the National Jug Band Jubilee in Louisville KY & on the final Heartland Series episode. Our slogan? If it ain't fun, why do it?!
Buck Hoffmann (guitar and vocals) originally from Austin, TX, grew up in the Washington D.C. area. When he turned 18 he met two of the most outstanding Piedmont Blues players around. In the mid 1980's they would come to play rent parties at a farm near Germantown, MD, where Buck was living. They befriended Buck who took on anything they were willing to share about Piedmont Blues Drew Fisher (harmonica, banjo, and vocals) was born and raised in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee. Fisher began attending bluegrass festivals and homecomings at a young age, where Drew picked up banjo and a love for stringband music. Drew is a multi-instrumentalist and amateur historian.