Trail Tunes
These local groups fiddled away the day with us in 2023:
Mink's Miracle
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Justin Trawick &
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SHORT HILL
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11:30 AM
Formed in 2013 by songwriters Melissa Wright and Daniel Zezeski, Mink's Miracle Medicine was named after a drawing of a snake oil salesman's wagon. After a decade in existence, Mink’s has expanded from a "poem-proselytizing duo" to an Americana collective caravan. Mink’s continues to woo audiences with what fans have described as “songs that feel like paintings” at venues like NPR’s Mountain Stage and Nashville’s Legendary Bluebird Cafe. For Mink’s, 2023 brings an LP release from WarHen Records, produced by Grammy Award-Winning Americana artist Chance McCoy.
1:45 PM
Justin Trawick has been performing in the DC area and along the East Coast for 17 years. In 2014, Trawick won “Song of the Year” at the Washington Area Music Awards for his solo recording of “All the Places That I’ve Been." In 2015, he released “Goodbye,” his first single with his band, Justin Trawick and the Common Good. Three years later, the band released the "The Riverwash EP" to critical acclaim. The band's single “Back of the Line,” released during the coronavirus quarantine—along with Trawick’s pandemic-inspired livestream series and secret backyard concert series—was featured on Reuters, CNN, Al Jazeera, Washington Post, Washingtonian Magazine, Parade Magazine, American Songwriter Magazine, Voice of America and Virginia Living Magazine. This January, Trawick released the single “These Days”, the first of a series of singles being released every six weeks throughout 2023 leading up to a full album at the end of the year.
4 PM
What began as a two-person fiddle and guitar duo evolved into the four-person Short Hill Mountain Boys, a Loudoun favorite. The founders of the band live in Lovettsville and named the group after the Short Hill Mountain near their homes. Primarily a cover band, the group plays throwback covers people haven’t heard before. The Short Hill Mountain Boys play a lively blend of bluegrass, old-time, cajun, classic country and folk music. Their harmony vocals, fiddling and guitar picking are tight and practiced like the suit-and-cowboy-hat bluegrass acts, but imbued with the spontaneity and infectious good times of old-time mountain music.
5:30 PM
Shannon Bielski and Moonlight Drive features hard-driving instrumentals and heartfelt vocals. Their musical renditions highlight traditional and progressive sounds alike. The band features Shannon Bielski on fiddle and vocals, Jack Dunlap on guitar, Rob Benzing on banjo and Cody Brown, from Bud's Collective, on bass. Shannon Bielski and Moonlight Drive has opened for The Seldom Scene, The Traveling McCourys, The Lonesome River Band, Danny Paisley and Southern Grass and Ronnie Bowman.
Formed in 2013 by songwriters Melissa Wright and Daniel Zezeski, Mink's Miracle Medicine was named after a drawing of a snake oil salesman's wagon. After a decade in existence, Mink’s has expanded from a "poem-proselytizing duo" to an Americana collective caravan. Mink’s continues to woo audiences with what fans have described as “songs that feel like paintings” at venues like NPR’s Mountain Stage and Nashville’s Legendary Bluebird Cafe. For Mink’s, 2023 brings an LP release from WarHen Records, produced by Grammy Award-Winning Americana artist Chance McCoy.
1:45 PM
Justin Trawick has been performing in the DC area and along the East Coast for 17 years. In 2014, Trawick won “Song of the Year” at the Washington Area Music Awards for his solo recording of “All the Places That I’ve Been." In 2015, he released “Goodbye,” his first single with his band, Justin Trawick and the Common Good. Three years later, the band released the "The Riverwash EP" to critical acclaim. The band's single “Back of the Line,” released during the coronavirus quarantine—along with Trawick’s pandemic-inspired livestream series and secret backyard concert series—was featured on Reuters, CNN, Al Jazeera, Washington Post, Washingtonian Magazine, Parade Magazine, American Songwriter Magazine, Voice of America and Virginia Living Magazine. This January, Trawick released the single “These Days”, the first of a series of singles being released every six weeks throughout 2023 leading up to a full album at the end of the year.
4 PM
What began as a two-person fiddle and guitar duo evolved into the four-person Short Hill Mountain Boys, a Loudoun favorite. The founders of the band live in Lovettsville and named the group after the Short Hill Mountain near their homes. Primarily a cover band, the group plays throwback covers people haven’t heard before. The Short Hill Mountain Boys play a lively blend of bluegrass, old-time, cajun, classic country and folk music. Their harmony vocals, fiddling and guitar picking are tight and practiced like the suit-and-cowboy-hat bluegrass acts, but imbued with the spontaneity and infectious good times of old-time mountain music.
5:30 PM
Shannon Bielski and Moonlight Drive features hard-driving instrumentals and heartfelt vocals. Their musical renditions highlight traditional and progressive sounds alike. The band features Shannon Bielski on fiddle and vocals, Jack Dunlap on guitar, Rob Benzing on banjo and Cody Brown, from Bud's Collective, on bass. Shannon Bielski and Moonlight Drive has opened for The Seldom Scene, The Traveling McCourys, The Lonesome River Band, Danny Paisley and Southern Grass and Ronnie Bowman.
