Meet Your Counselors

Joe Henry

In a career spanning more than 30 years, three-time Grammy winning songwriter and producer Joe Henry has left an indelible and unique imprint on American popular music. Known for his exploration of the human experience, Henry is a hyper-literate storyteller, by turns dark, devastating, and hopeful.

He has recorded 16 albums of his own — his latest All The Eye Can See was recorded during the lockdown, which inspired a departure from his flair for tracking live ensemble performances.

Instead, the album features remotely recorded contributions from over 20 guests, including Daniel Lanois, Madison Cunningham, and Allison Russell to name a few.

  • Joe’s artist collaborations cross a variety of genres including T Bone Burnett, Ornette Coleman, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Billy Bragg — the latter with whom he was nominated for “Duo/Group of the Year” by the Americana Music Association for their collaborative album Shine A Light: Field Recordings From The Great American Railroad.

    As a producer, Henry has made albums for the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens and Solomon Burke, and has scored films including Knocked Up, Jesus’ Son, and Motherhood. In 2013, Algonquin Press published a biography co-written by Joe and his brother Dave Henry: Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World that Made Him.

Paper Wings

Long-time friends and collaborators Emily Mann and Wila Frank, known together as Paper Wings, dream up warm, pastoral folk songs suited to wandering through a forest or field, quiet contemplation, and long winding journeys. Furnished with delicate banjo and spellbinding harmonies so close you often can’t tell their voices apart, Frank & Mann deliver dynamic performances emboldened by the strength of their sincere songwriting. The duo have an uncommon ability to tastefully reference nostalgic sounds of American folk music while maintaining their own compelling style of artful and unpretentious lyricism. The strength and solitude one finds in the wilderness is a theme throughout their writing, and they lovingly transport listeners to open landscapes in which to find comfort and ask the questions which we all have in common.

  • With roots in California and Oregon respectively, Mann & Frank met as fellow fiddle players attending music camps and festivals growing up. As teenagers, they developed their instrumental prowess by studying and performing with folk legends such as Alice Gerrard, Laurie Lewis, Tim O’Brien, Steve Earle, Aoife O’Donovan and Sarah Jarosz among others. It was during this time that they began writing and touring together, eventually making their way to Nashville where they recorded their debut album Paper Wings in 2017 and sophomore album Clementine in 2019. After garnering streaming success with their heartfelt track “Troubled Soul”, the duo hit the road opening for Avi Kaplan’s ‘I’ll Get By’ tour.  

    During the lockdowns of 2020, Frank & Mann began working on a third album. Partway through, they placed the project on hold to focus on other projects. The last song they had released before parting ways was single “Marigold,” a potent balm for the heart, telling of new beginnings and second chances. Perhaps this song was a prophecy of sorts, for in 2023 Frank & Mann reunited to finish the album, much to the delight of their fans. Over the course of four days, the duo captured their collection of songs in an intimate private studio outside of Nashville. This work of 12 tracks is titled Listen to the World Spin and came out March 15th, 2024. 

    On Listen to the World Spin, the duo’s songwriting flourishes in new ways while maintaining their intuitive sparseness and eloquence. Throughout the album, they invite us to take a step back to look at our lives as a landscape from above. Like co-passengers on a long voyage, the two old friends explore the textures of shifting relationships with ourselves, with each other, and with the world around us. A profound sense of solitude and yearning resonates throughout the album. On the title track, they implore “I feel so small, show me how to burn bright” and “I feel so alone, show me how to hold on”. This theme of seeking is echoed in album highlight “Funny Little World” with a series of questions: “What’s up with the pain in the world? Am I gonna be alright? Will I survive? What have I got myself into?” 

    In lieu of answers to their questions, Frank and Mann simply remind us throughout the album that we are not alone in our search for meaning and certainty. The journey is the destination in this collection of songs, along with the friendship and empathy found along the way. “These songs brought us back together, tugging at our hearts until we made them into something,” says Frank. “We needed these songs to guide and comfort us through the last few years, and we hope they’ll do the same for others.”

Jason Cupp

An experienced, well-respected producer, engineer, and mixer, Jason Cupp has worked over 20 years in the music industry, for a long list of successful artists and bands, including American Football, Good Old War, The Elected, Jon Brion, John Paul White, Maps & Atlases, Anthony Green, Dispatch, Rx Bandits, and Finch. His most recent credits as a mixer can be found on recordings by Vera Sola, Into it. Over it and Tim Kasher.  Outside of his mixing studio, Jason can be found touring as the front of house engineer for The Milk Carton Kids. 

Although Cupp has recorded in some of the best studios in the world, including Abbey Road, Fame, The Village, and Indigo Ranch, Cupp’s Master Class is designed to encompass techniques for home studio setup and use. For Cupp, working in the comfort of a home studio offers boundary stretching sonic benefits, and opportunities for innovative production. Additional topics will include mic selection, EQ, compression, and effects, as well as discussing recording, production, and mixing tips for home recordings. 

Mike + Ruthy

The Mammals are folksingers Ruth Ungar, Mike Merenda, and a cohort of compelling collaborators who form a touring quintet on the fiddle, banjo, guitar, organ, bass, and drums. Over the past 20 years they have quietly composed a canon of original songs (“some of the best songwriting of their generation.” -LA Times) that both reflect our culture and offer a vision of how the world might yet be.  “These days we sing about what we’re for over what we’re against,” says songwriter, Mike Merenda, and what they're for is "nothing short of sublime” according to Americana UK.

A rough and tumble decade in the 00's forged The Mammals identity as "subversive acoustic traditionalists” (Boston Globe) or a "party band with a conscience." Re-emerging in 2017 from a hibernation period during-which the band's founders explored new songwriting terrain, The Mammals “don’t suffer from multiple genre syndrome, they celebrate it as if gleefully aware that the sound barriers separating old-timey music, vintage pop and contemporary folk are as permeable as cotton” (Washington Post).  Their latest album, Nonet, "marshalls the defiant spirit needed to heal a damaged world" (No Depression).  In 2023 they released a series of singles recorded at their own Humble Abode Music, as well as issuing bonus material from 2020’s landmark album Nonet. A new album is slated for late summer 2025.

  • Ruth is the daughter of legendary fiddler, Jay Ungar, composer of the storied “Ashokan Farewell.” You can catch The Mammals semi-annually at The Hoot, a folk festival they curate and produce at The Ashokan Center in Olivebridge, NY.

    “Hailed by many as Americana trailblazers and exuding togetherness on stage, [The Mammals] are also gently-mannered activists with well-crafted songs that successfully ask potent questions and raise issues to probe how we can improve the planet. They deliver their material persuasively and in an eloquent manner with enjoyment of their music underpinning the approach overall. The music is the motivator throughout.”
    "In the vanguard of today's vibrant folk revival" - PopMatters
    “One of New York State’s finest treasures.” - Americana UK 
    “Some of the best songwriting of their generation.” - LA Times 
    “A national treasure.” - Anais Mitchell
    "Some of the best folk-rock music you will ever hear.” - TapeOp 
    “These two will shatter any preconceived stereotypical notions of what it means to be a folk musician.” - Coastal Journal  
    “Nonet marshals the defiant spirit needed to heal a damaged world”   - No Depression 
    “The Mammals tell stories that are at once topical and timeless, bearing a message of hope 
    and empowerment with a modern string-band sound.”   - Freshgrass Festival  

Vera Sola

The American/Canadian poet, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Vera Sola is hard to pin down. She’s been alternately cast as the ‘lost love child of Leonard Cohen and Nancy Sinatra,’ ‘Nick Cave in the role of Staggerlee,’ ‘Patsy Cline fronting a minimalist Warpaint’ and ‘PJ Harvey at her most irate, teeth-bared.’ But none of that really paints the full picture. With a twisted, break-neck finger-picking style, haunting vibrato and ability to move her voice from a guttural howl to a whisper-soft stutter, she shatters genre and seems to bend time.

Her albums have been met with widespread praise, but Vera is still best known for her hypnotic stage presence. In the words of Loud and Quiet magazine, she’s like "a Westworld android gone rogue; a living anachronism, capable of both run-of-the-mill stage banter and of occupying the characters of her songs with full force, moving as if possessed by them as she performs.” Sophomore album Peacemaker is out now on City Slang Records.