Allen Stone was raised in the small town of Chewelah, Washington. He grew up on gospel music, spending much of his childhood as a pastor’s son watching his parents lead their congregation in song. By the time he was 11, he’d picked up a guitar, wrote his first song and soon began self-recording demo tapes to pass along to classmates. After dropping out of college, he moved to Seattle to kickstart his music career, often driving up and down the west coast in his ’87 Buick to play any and all gigs he could.

He quickly developed a reputation for powerful live shows, playing up to 200 dates a year. And, in the years since, Allen has built a devoted following on the strength of his near-magical ability to channel a weight-of-the-world sensitivity into his songs while still radiating hope and promise. His easy grace in blending everything from edgy soul-pop and earthy folk-rock to throwback R&B and Parliament-inspired funk is reflected in his five full length albums –  from his 2010 self-released debut album Last To Speak to 2021’s APART, an intimate album recorded in a converted cabin during the pandemic.

Stone has continued to keep a constant touring schedule and has appeared numerous times on national television including performances on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Today Show, was a mentor on American Idol, and just recently participated in The American Song Contest.  

A singer and songwriter who mixes the honky tonk atmosphere of vintage country with the clever bite of indie rock, Nikki Lane is a barroom siren whose music is tough, witty, and bold, inhabiting Nashville archetypes while upending them at the same time. Lane’s songs walk a fine line between sincerity and irony, but the passion and effectiveness of her vocals keeps her from sounding like a put-on, and her melodies mix rootsy twang and rock & roll edge with confidence. Lane introduced her talent with the 2011 debut Walk of Shame and added a soulful edge with 2014’s All or Nothin’ and 2017’s Highway Queen. With 2022’s Denim & Diamonds, she eased back on her country accents and added harder rock energy to her mix.

A high-school dropout from Greenville, South Carolina, Nikki Lane was born Nicole Lane Frady on October 17, 1983. She spent her early adulthood working as an L.A.-based fashion designer. Lane later moved to New York City, where she started dating a musician with a taste for country. When he decided to leave New York to work on a recording project in Alabama, it led to a messy breakup. Nursing a broken heart inspired Lane to pick up the acoustic guitar and write a handful of sad, sassy country songs, inspired by Loretta Lynn and Merle Haggard. What began as a form of self-therapy eventually developed into a serious avocation, and Lane wound up leaving town again, this time returning to the American South by settling in Nashville, where she opened a clothing boutique called High Class Hillbilly.

Having relocated to the country music capital of the world, Lane sought out local musicians interested in working with her and began making the rounds of Music City clubs, building a local audience by putting her own spin on the genre. Hooking up with the indie IAmSound label, Lane released her debut EP, Gone, Gone, Gone, in July 2011, whose orchestral sound earned comparisons to mid-century icons (Tammy Wynette, Nancy Sinatra) and retro-revivalists (She & Him, the Secret Sisters). Several months later, Lane was back with the full-length Walk of Shame, a confident fusion of Old School country and retro-rock. After extensive touring in 2012, she signed to New West in 2013. Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys offered to produce Lane’s New West debut, and 2014’s All or Nothin’ was recorded at his Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville. The opening track, “Right Time,” became a hit on streaming services, giving her profile a considerable boost. Lane was dating musician and songwriter Jonathan Tyler when she began work on her third album, and Tyler joined her in the studio, serving as producer for 2017’s Highway Queen, with the songs “Send the Sun” and “Highway Queen” picking up considerable streaming play.

– Mark Deming

Prior to founding GWV, Marc started and ran the successful Green World Campaign (www.greenworld.org). There he has specialized in community-based agroforestry, perennial agriculture, and reforestation, helping to pioneer an award-winning holistic model of landscape restoration, poverty alleviation, food security, and climate change resilience. GWC worked in nine countries on three continents, now focusing in coastal Kenya, where it has planted 4 million biodiverse trees, introduced moringa cultivation and seed-oil ventures to many communities, and created 100 eco-schools programs. Marc has been involved in the natural products industry since the 1980s, when he edited Natural Health magazine and lived in Boulder, CO, the epicenter of the natural foods business. He is a cross-platform media expert who has created global environmental programming for Ted Turner et. al. His bestselling books on holistic medicine (Remarkable Recovery) and social well-being (The Compassionate Life) have made him a well-recognized global thought-leader. He recently convened a multi-stakeholder conference on regenerative strategies in San Francisco.