Bruce Greene is known worldwide for preserving and playing old-time Kentucky fiddle music. For much of his life, he has lived and worked among the people of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Western North Carolina researching and absorbing the music and folk traditions. This ballad, The Sweet Soldier Boy, was taken from the recording, River of Time: Traditional Songs and Fiddle Tunes from The Toe River Valley

Bruce Duncan “Utah” Phillips (May 15, 1935 – May 23, 2008) was born in Cleveland, Ohio. After serving in the United States Army for three years during the mid-1950s in post-war Korea, he began drifting around the mid-west riding the rails, writing songs, and eventually settling in Salt Lake, where he helped to establish a mission house of hospitality named after activist Joe Hill. Phillips worked as a labor organizer and activist, telling stories, and writing songs and poetry.

Amy Ammons Garza is a storyteller who tells tales of growing up in the North Carolina Mountains. As a child, she sat at the foot of her grandfather and listened to tales of how her ancestors, seven generations past, were a part of those who traveled to Western NC and settled in the isolated mountains. His stories intrigued her, and so she stored them away until she grew up and began to write about them. Now she has eleven books, three of which are a trilogy of her family's heritage. “All the stories are based on the experiences of our family," says Amy. “Grandpa said we are all carriers of our heritage. My goal is to instill in my audience the knowledge that we are all different, yet wonderful in our own way.

"Casey at the Bat" is perhaps the most well know sports poem of all time. It was written in 1883 by Ernest Lawrence Thayer (1863 – 1940) under the pen name Phin. The poem gained popularity after actor William DeWolf Hopper incorporated it into his radio performances.

Harold Wayne Turner is from Pickens, S.C. As a child, he spent much of his time as an apprentice in his father’s woodworking shop. His father, James “ Carolina ” Turner shared cotton mill tales and stories about the war. "Drive the Coon Dog" is one of his dad’s old-time mill stories. It beckons to the day when a man was measured by the dog he owned.

Pete is a puppeteer, theater teacher, and storyteller. He makes his home in Asheville, N.C. The Fly and The Lion is an Aesop Fable that teaches bragging can get you in trouble.

Doug Elliott is a naturalist, herbalist, basket maker, back-country guide, harmonica master, and storyteller from Rutherford County N.C. He has spent much of his time learning from traditional country folk and indigenous people. He performs programs at festivals, museums, nature centers, and schools from Canada to the Caribbean. He is the author of five books, many articles in regional and national magazines, and is an award-winning recording artist.

Michael "Badhair" Williams has been telling Appalachian folk tales on stage since 1975. Television, radio, and rock videos have pushed storytelling into the corners with the cobwebs. "Badhair" sweeps it back out, pulling from his Appalachian heritage the tales that delighted our grandparents, and now delight our children and ourselves.

Kyra Freeman writes poems, tells stories, and dances in the kitchen in Morganton, North Carolina. A former school librarian turned massage therapist, she was raised in Vermont not too far from the Appalachians. She lives with her family and infamous pets and goes outside in the yard as much as possible. She is a member of the Asheville Storytelling Circle and the N.C. Storytelling Guild.

Minton Sparks is a wildly original poet, performance artist, novelist, teacher, and essayist born in a Tennessee college town and raised among her Southern family in and around Arkansas. She earned degrees from the University of the South and Vanderbilt University. Her appearances range from the prestigious Jonesborough National Storytelling Festival all the way to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and the American Songbook Series at Lincoln Center in New York City.