Best Local Folk Act

Salamander Crossing

Local in the broadest sense of the word, Salamander Crossing have steadily gained steam on the national bluegrass circuit for the better part of three years. In the past year alone, they appeared at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, Strawberry Festival, and Escoheag's Cajun and Bluegrass Festival. They contributed a cut to the Live at the Iron Horse CD (which also featured luminaries Mary Chapin Carpenter and Richard Thompson) and released their third full-length album, Bottleneck Dreams (Signature Sounds), to a hail storm of critical praise. Not to mention, with the encouragement of increased record sales and radio airplay, they took the plunge into music-as-full-time-job.

Consisting of Rani Arbo on fiddle, Andrew Kinsey on bass, and Jeff Kelliher on guitar, they've recently added Union Music techie and banjo player Dave Dick, who also works with Wormtown alterna-country rockers Little Big Wheel.

What sets Salamander Crossing apart from their contemporaries, and causes critics to wax poetic, is their innovative and refreshing interpretation of a tired, formulaic style of music. They're able to mix bluegrass instrumentation with contemporary folk, Appalachia porch music, swing blues (they also aren't afraid to cover artists as diverse as Bill Monroe, Bruce Springsteen, and Gillian Welch) and let it simmer for a sound that blends top-notch songwriting with hauntingly beautiful vocal harmonies. While most bluegrass bands emphasize flashy picking, Salamander Crossing lure folks in with a more accessible acoustic sound that not only appeals to a non-bluegrass audience but one that can one day be looked to as a reference point for the evolution of the genre.

-- John O'Neill