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THE NORTH EAST
FALL FOLK & BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7TH, 2026
SHOWTIME: 6 PM | DOORS: 5:30 PM
TICKETS: $24 ORCHESTRA | $28 BOX SEATS | $20 BALCONY | $16 CHILDREN (UNDER 12) | $16 GROUPS OF 10+
RECOMMENDED FOR AGES 8+
Get ready for another unforgettable evening of folk, bluegrass, and roots music as the North East Fall Folk & Bluegrass Festival returns to the Milburn Stone Theatre on Saturday, November 7, 2026. Now in its fourth year, the festival brings together an exciting lineup of artists who celebrate the storytelling, musicianship, and rich traditions of American roots music.
Headlining this year’s festival once again is Danny Paisley & The Southern Grass, one of the most respected and award-winning names in traditional bluegrass. Known for their powerful, unadorned style, Danny Paisley’s unmistakable vocals blend bluesy soul with the high-lonesome tradition of bluegrass. With a six-decade family legacy behind them and multiple International Bluegrass Music Association honors, Danny Paisley & The Southern Grass continue to deliver the authentic, energetic sound that has made them festival favorites across the country.
Joining them are The Pinkerton Raid, led by songwriter Jesse James DeConto. Blending dreamy folk with thoughtful songwriting and a distinctly Americana spirit, The Pinkerton Raid explores the intersection of personal experience and the larger world around us. DeConto’s songs draw inspiration from everything from Celtic lore and STAR WARS to Kerouac, Woody Guthrie, John Lennon, Standing Rock, Laurel Canyon, and the complicated stories of his own family. Described by Americana Highways as “a fine blend of Beatles-esque dreamy folk,” The Pinkerton Raid brings a thoughtful, poetic voice and plenty of Big Dad Energy to the festival stage.
Also taking the stage are Cait & RoC, a dynamic acoustic duo whose music is rooted in a lifelong passion for creativity, artistry, and connection. Cait Dempsey brings years of performance experience and a gentle yet powerful vocal presence, while Richard of Carver is an accomplished songwriter and guitarist with decades devoted to the craft of melody and musical arrangement. Together, their distinct talents create a sound that feels intimate, genuine, and uniquely their own.
Whether you’re a longtime bluegrass enthusiast, a lover of folk music, or simply looking for an evening of exceptional live performance, the North East Fall Folk & Bluegrass Festival promises a memorable night of music and storytelling. Come celebrate the traditions of American roots music while discovering the artists carrying those traditions into the future.
Danny Paisley & The Southern Grass:
Danny Paisley and The Southern Grass continue to be deeply rooted in tradition but look to the future with enthusiasm and anticipation. Coming off the success of their latest release, Bluegrass Troubadour, which received nominations for IBMA’s Album of the Year and Song of the Year (Blink of an Eye), the group looks forward to the release of their newest project in 2025, which includes the No. 1 single ‘Till Lonesome Comes Around.
Danny Paisley and the Southern Grass play powerful, unadorned, and intense traditional bluegrass. There is no hybrid or genre-bending music here. Their combination of instrumentation and vocals convey the energy and emotion of classic bluegrass and country music. Danny’s lead vocals will captivate your senses, so much so that many prominent musicians, including Alison Krauss, have considered Danny as one of their favorite singers. His voice combines powerful range and soulful blues with a sound like no one else in bluegrass today.
Since Danny’s father, Bob Paisley (founder of Southern Grass), passed away in 2004, Danny Paisley and The Southern Grass have made their niche in the bluegrass world, producing consecutive chart-topping albums. The group has been given over 20 Bluegrass Music Award Nominations and won the 2009 IBMA Song of the Year for Don’t Throw Mama’s Flowers Away. In 2024, Danny Paisley joined an elite group of vocalists to be awarded the IBMA Male Vocalist of the Year for the fourth time - an achievement bestowed only to three others in the history of Bluegrass music.
With Danny Paisley on guitar, Southern Grass continues the family tradition by adding Danny’s son Ryan on mandolin, the next generation of up-and-coming pickers. Southern Grass continues the rich musical heritage started by Bob Paisley and Ted Lundy with Lundy’s sons T.J. (Fiddle) and Bobby (Bass and Vocals). T.J. Lundy is a highly respected fiddler bridging the gap between old-time fiddling and bluegrass music. Bobby Lundy is also a renowned multi-instrumentalist who has gained attention for his unique bass style. Southern Grass also includes Mark Delaney on banjo, who rejoined the group after a brief hiatus.
Danny Paisley, born in Landenberg, PA, in 1959, grew up listening to the music his father Bob played and enjoyed hearing the sounds of classic bluegrass like Red Allen, Mac Martin, Bill Monroe, the Stanleys, Reno and Smiley, and the Osbornes - in addition to old-time mountain music and traditional country music. Once you hear Danny sing, it is no surprise that he lists George Jones and Vern Gosdin as major influences in his singing.
Danny Paisley and The Southern Grass continue to carry on a legacy set forth over six decades ago, gathering fans at each event; Danny Paisley and The Southern Grass look forward with renewed energy as they bring their unique sound to audiences near and far.
THE PINKERTON RAID:
PROTEST SONGS WITH ‘BIG DAD ENERGY’
The Pinkerton Raid’s songwriter Jesse James DeConto has been a dad since he was 24 years old. He spent the first two-and-a-half decades of this new millennium raising two kids with their mom and now their step-mom and his big, extended family. Themes of fatherhood have sprouted up throughout his six previous full-length albums, but never with the focus you’ll find on IF YOU LOVE SOMEBODY, TELL THEM.
Having cut his teeth as a journalist in the first 20 years of his career, Jesse is a storyteller, and the stories you hear in the songs and between the songs have a lot to do fighting for his kids to have a future amidst climate change, democratic collapse and America’s dangerous concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a greedy few.
Go see a live show with The Pinkerton Raid, and Jesse might share about his history in Lawrence, Mass., the birthplace of the Labor Movement; his dad’s stint with Jimmy Carter’s Job Corps program in the late ‘70s; facing COVID rent strikes as a small-time landlord; visiting his grandfather’s hometown in Sicily at the same time ICE was cracking down on immigrants back home; or consoling his GenZ daughter after Elon Musk cut her job at Fish & Wildlife. He’s a poet, steeped in the mysticism of STAR WARS and Celtic lore, the existentialism of Kerouac, the naturalism of THE LORD OF THE RINGS, Standing Rock and Laurel Canyon, the liberation politics of Woody Guthrie and John Lennon, but also in his family’s real life, with all its complications. There is a fair number of songs about trees.
Co-produced with The Collection’s David Wimbish and Bombadil’s James Phillips, IF YOU LOVE SOMEBODY, TELL THEM is a protest album with an unlikely title. “Protest songs are love songs because the only politics worth a lick are those based in loving our neighbors,” Jesse says. “You tell somebody you love them by listening to them, by acting on what they say if you’re able, and, as fellow citizens, by voting in people and policies that serve them.”
Singles like “Wishing Wells,” “This Machine Kills Loneliness,” “The Fight for Freedom Was in Vogue” and “Strawberry Ice (and the World Burns)” reckon with social inequities, mass trauma and the possibilities of taking care of one another through the chaos, with art as an essential tool. The opening track “They Were the Children” is “immensely moving,” says AMERICANA HIGHWAYS, while “The Village” “simultaneously plumbs the depth of the both the state of the world and the human heart.” Naming “We Tremble with the Noise” as a top North Carolina song for 2025, WCHL said, “In a year full of radical protest music, the best political song of all might actually be this more conciliatory one.”
Jesse grew up on the mellow gold of his mom’s car radio and his dad’s guitar: Liverpool, The Village, Soulsville and Motown, now spinning out songs AMERICANA-UK calls “anthemic.” Critics have heard echoes from Iron & Wine and Neil Young to Wilco and The Killers. He’s opened for Sunny War, Amythyst Kiah, TopHouse and Noah Gundersen. He played an official showcase at Folk Alliance International 2025 and has been slotting at Mile of Music, AVLFest, Cosmic Songwriter and other grassroots festivals with artists like Carsie Blanton, Tommy Prine and River Whyless. He writes soft-spoken protest songs with Big Dad Energy, and there is a fair number of songs about trees.
CAIT & ROC:
Cait & RoC are a dynamic acoustic duo rooted in a shared lifelong passion for music, art, and creativity.
Cait Dempsey is a seasoned artist with years of experience on stage, bringing deep emotion and connection to her performances through her gentle yet powerful vocals. Richard of Carver is an accomplished artist and songwriter with hundreds of compositions and decades spent studying the guitar and the subtlety of melody and musical arrangement.
Together, Cait & RoC blend their distinct musical strengths and styles into something unique and entirely their own with a genuine chemistry making every performance feel personal, brand new, and special.
