Full Bio:

 

Sandifer / Edwardson are torchbearers, keeping the bright embers of traditional songs smoldering for a new generation. They make modern music rooted in the Piedmont and Delta’s fertile folk traditions. With a singing style that hearkens back to the brother duets of the 1930s, they bring together the legacy of troubadour songwriting with bluegrass, newgrass and jug band influences. Brad Edwardson’s clarion vocals and rock-steady guitar, along with Steven Sandifer’s harmonies, upright bass and old-time percussion, revive and revitalize Appalachia’s most venerable songs while adding new ones to the cannon. 

 

Sandifer / Edwardson are musical horticulturists. For centuries, resourceful farmers have grafted the young buds of one variety of fruit onto the rootstock of another more hardy and vigorous tree. This process makes hybrid apples like Galas, Jonagolds and Honeycrisps—fruits that combine traits of different heirloom varieties while preserving them for future generations. Like these cultivators of yore, Sandifer and Edwardson graft ideas from jug band music, Hill Country blues and Appalcahian folktales onto the sturdy trunk of the string band duo to create a sound that’s rooted in tradition but always growing new shoots. 

 

Steven Sandifer grew up on the South Carolina Sea Islands, playing percussion in the hotbed of Charleston’s jazz scene. He later became smitten with the high lonesome sound of bluegrass music and, determined to find a home for his percussion skills amongst the strings, he learned to flatfoot and hambone—later transposing those Appalachian and Gullah rhythms to the snare drum. After some years of touring as a percussionist with string bands, he tired of sitting on the sidelines at the after hours and backstage jams, so he bought a 1938 Kay upright and taught himself to play. “The upright bass had been calling to me for some time,” he recalls, “and knowing that bass players were in demand, I figured learning the bass would be a great way to get more involved with the music.” With the Sandifer / Edwardson duo, he plays spoons, bones and washboard—but with a pocket and bounce more like Max Roach than anything you’d hear in a Vaudeville saloon. He’ll make you take the spoons seriously. Sandifer currently plays in Dangermuffin and has been a member of The Biscuit Boys, Drew Emmitt Band, and Adrienne Young and Little Sadie. He has shared the stage with bands like the Infamous Stringdusters, Yonder Mountain String Band, Leftover Salmon, and many more.

 

Brad Edwardson grew up in Wisconsin but makes his home in the sunny climes of St. Augustine, Florida. He came up playing piano and clarinet before focusing on acoustic guitar after hearing Doc Watson as a teenager. He started playing with jug bands and trad jazz outfits, hanging out with the kind of musicians who sought out old recordings with the zeal of thrift store hunters. He too began to appreciate the sound of rough-hewn, old-time records—and the obscure b-sides and underappreciated songs he’d find on them. Inspired by the storylines, travelogues and characters of these old relics, Edwardson began writing his own songs, eventually starting The Red Cedar Review, before meeting Sandifer. 

 

Sandifer / Edwardson’s forthcoming EP is full of songs that read like folktales. Gems like “Eight More Miles to Louisville,” in which a road-weary traveler realizes that everything he was searching for was always already at home; or “Louis Collins,” a mournful murder ballad written by bluesman Mississippi John Hurt; or “Big River,” Johnny Cash’s story of a man following his lover along the Mississippi, from St. Paul to New Orleans, only to find that her love belongs to the river itself. These songs are southern epics, allegories and parables—like chapters from an old farmer’s almanac, predicting our current weather and occasionally foretelling the future. 

 

Before coming together, Sandifer and Edwardson logged more than a million miles on the road, touring with nationally acclaimed artists at venues including the Newport Folk Festival, Philadelphia Folk Festival, FloydFest, RockyGrass, Suwannee SpringFest and more. In addition to concerts, the duo offers educational workshops and masterclasses. Together, they’re committed to grafting new shoots onto old stalks in hopes of filling our farm stands and grocery carts with the next crop of timeless folk songs.