Milwaukee raised but now Nashville based sister duo, SistaStrings, combines their classical background with R&B with a touch of gospel influence that culminates in a vibey, lush sound. With thick string harmonies between violin and cello and soulful voices, SistaStrings takes you on a journey. Formed in 2014 after the sisters graduated from college, Chauntee (violin) moved back from her studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Monique (cello) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the sisters began doing string arrangements for local artists and the rest is history. Slowly but surely, SistaStrings built a following and began playing more shows with collaboration being one of their strongest points. Their debut project (released summer of 2019) went on to win Album of the Year at Radio Milwaukee Music Awards. The sisters not only write and arrange but find pleasure sitting in with musicians and exploring what sounds come from improvisation and spontaneity.

SistaStrings can often be found playing alongside singer/songwriter Peter Mulvey. They released a collab album winter of 2020 via Righteous Babe Records called Peter Mulvey and SistaStrings Live at the Cafe Carpe. Having been raised in church, SistaStrings began to develop their ear training skills at a very young age. The classical background that the two sisters have had allows them to command their instruments at will. Between the two of them, they have performed in some of the most reputable halls, including Carnegie Hall and in their classical career they have soloed with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and the Madison Symphony Orchestra. SistaStrings has performed with Malik Yusef, opened for Black Violin, Bone Thugs ‘N Harmony, Lupe Fiasco, BJ The Chicago Kid, and The Roots. Outside of playing music venues, SistaStrings goes into schools and conducts assemblies, encouraging young people to pursue the arts and to not be afraid of hard work. Outreach and representation are important to these two young ladies as African American string players. Chauntee and Monique are on staff at the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra and each musician has an independent teaching studio as well. SistaStrings can be found performing in schools and youth centers teaching, performing, and encouraging educators and students alike. The ladies are advocates for diversity in the arts and promote social justice in all that they do

Take a listen to Truck Driven’ Man by the TwangBangers and within two measures you’ll know you better bring your dancing shoes to the 2021 Sugar Maple Music Festival. Bill Kirchen and Redd Volkaert swap vocals and guitar leads, illustrating their deep history in Honky Tonk and Rock n’ Roll along with their command of the electric guitar.

Bill Kirchen is a founding father of Commander Cody, and his diesel-fueled licks drove Hot Rod Lincoln into the Top 10 nationwide. A Grammy nominee for Best Country Instrumental in 2001, he has recorded with Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Nick Lowe, Dan Hicks, Maria Muldaur, Hoyt Axton, Hazel Dickens, Gene Vincent and Link Wray. His Transatlanticana disc cracked the Americana Radio Chart Top 10 in 2018

Redd Volkaert, was born in Canada and played all over there until he moved to the US at age 26. He played his way from San Jose, to LA, Nashville, Austin, and now Galax VA.  In 1997 Redd landed the coveted lead guitar spot with Merle Haggard. Merle said “When I close my eyes I sometimes hear Roy Nichols (Merle’s iconic original lead man) and that has never happened before” 

Redd won a Grammy for his own work in 2009, and has recorded and/or played live with a host of world-class artists, among them Ray Price, Eric Johnson, Johnny Paycheck, Rhonda Vincent, Vince Gill, John Jorgensen, George Jones, Buck Owens, Connie Smith,  Tim McGraw, Allison Krause, Charlie Pride, Brad Paisley, Billy Gibbons, Jimmy Vaughn, and a whole lot more.

Bill and Redd play the mainstage Friday August 6. Tickets on sale now

Belen Escobedo plays rare and beautiful fiddle tunes in the South Texas Tejano (Texas-Mexican) tradition. Growing up on the South side of San Antonio and working as a professional fiddler since she was a teenager, Belen has preserved a unique style of fiddling that has all but disappeared from the Texas borderlands. Belen has a vast and
unique repertoire, including tunes she learned from her grandfather’s whistling and a huge range of borderlands tunes from both sides of the border

When Texas Folklife and the Festival of Texas Fiddling honored her with the 2017 Texas Master Fiddler Award, they praised her for “single handedly keeping alive” the tradition of conjunto fiddle, “a rare and beautiful style of Mexican-American fiddling which has almost disappeared despite once being very widespread in the borderlands.” Today Belen Escobedo is the foremost practitioner of this fiddle-led art form that expresses the deep roots of Tejano (Texas-Mexican) culture.

Backing up Escobedo are her husband, Ramon Gutierrez, on tololoche, the Tejano upright bass, and Stevie Ray Vavages on bajo sexto, the twelve-string guitar. Her first album Panfilo’s Güera was released by Spring Fed Records in May, 2018.

Take a listen as Belen reflects on her music and learn more about the tradition of conjunto fiddle.

“Paper Wings blends two distinct voices and impeccable skills as instrumentalists to create a modern, unified vision built on Appalachian traditions.” -No Depression.

Paper Wings is an Nashville based Indie-Folk duo featuring Emily Mann and Wilhelmina Frankzerda. They released their first self-titled album in 2017 consisting of traditional & original songs inspired by classic duet harmonies and old-time Appalachian sounds. In 2019, their second and most recent album “Clementine” hit the scene with a bang featuring a stunning collection of all original songs inspired by love, longing, self-reflection, and finding sympathy in nature. Self published and self produced, “Clementine” received wildly positive reviews in admiration of their striking vocal blend, inventive writing, and distinctive way of weaving traditional sounds into their music.

Paper Wings plays the 2021 Sugar Maple Music Festival Friday, August 6.

Buffalo Nichols will play the Sugar Maple Music Festival on Saturday, August 7, 2021

For all the moonlighting he’s done in other genres over the years, Carl Nichols always comes back to the blues. At various points in his career Nichols has played gospel (despite being an atheist), West African music (despite being born and raised in Milwaukee) and, as one half of the acclaimed folk duo Nickel & Rose, Americana (despite having some deep reservations about that genre’s long history of appropriating black music without always welcoming black musicians). None of those gigs, however, extinguished his desire to play the kind of traditional, acoustic blues he grew up admiring.

Maybe on some level he’s pathologically drawn to spaces where he’s an outsider. As a twentysomething black musician, Nichols is all too aware that the modern blues scene doesn’t look much like him, but he never outgrew his childhood love of the music. “It seemed cool to me when I was young,” he says. “You’d just hear people like Lightnin’ Hopkins or R.L. Burnside, and they just seemed cool. That’s why anybody gets into music, because it speaks to them.”

And it continues to speak to him, so much so that he’s tabled Nickel & Rose just as the duo was establishing itself as a major folk festival draw to pursue his dream of returning the blues to its songwriter roots. “I think a lot of what’s been lost in the blues since the early ’60s is the black experience, so I try to sing about that,” Nichols says. “I can’t escape racial realities, but I’m also aware that my audience is different than me, so the way they receive my message is different. I have this nostalgia for an era where blues musicians sang about their experiences to their own people, but that audience isn’t there now.”

It’s a challenge, he admits, but there’s power in crossing racial and generational divides. And on a personal level, he sees Buffalo Nichols as a form of justice for the music he’s always loved. “I want to redeem the blues after all the experiences I went through when I was younger,” he explains. “When I first started getting into the blues, my mom would take me to blues shows, and inevitably there’d be some old white guy there who would try to take me under his wing and explain ‘the rules’ of the blues to me. It chased me away. “I always related to the blues,” Nichols concludes. “I grew up in abject poverty. I experienced racism. And when I would sit down with a blues record, I could hear that in the songs. Now I want to be that person that I never got to see on stage.”