MARY GAUTHIER just released her 10th studio album, “Reckoning.” Invited to perform at the Newport Folk Festival after selling her Boston restaurant to finance her second album, “Drag Queens and Limousines,” she moved to Nashville and broke through with the universally acclaimed “Mercy Now” in 2005. She co-wrote the songs on her 2018 album, “Rifles and Rosary Beads,” with military veterans and their families. In 2021 Mary published a recovery memoir called “Saved By a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting.” She’s frequently joined on tour by her partner JAIMEE HARRIS.  

In 2007 RISSI PALMER became the first Black woman to chart with a country song in almost 20 years with her song “Country Girl.” The Grammy nominee’s 2019 album “Revival” featured the song “Seeds,” which was written in response to the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. Rissi has performed at iconic venues from the Apollo Theater and the Grand Ole Opry to the White House. Since 2020 she has hosted Color Me Country Radio on Apple Music.   

ANNE MCCUE moved from her native Australia to L.A. around the year 2000, and then on to Nashville in 2007. After playing with rock bands in Melbourne (including the all-female Girl Monstar), she toured in America with Lucinda WiIliams. Anne released her eighth studio album, “Wholly Roller Coaster,” in 2025.

RACHEL RODRIGUEZ grew up in Michigan singing mariachi and traditional country music in her father’s band. She is the creator of “Songs for My Little Amigos,” a bilingual music-and-movement project for children based on her album of the same name. Her latest releases include the anthemic “Juntos (Together.”

Growing up in suburban Georgia, JON LATHAM found his musical training in the Pentecostal church. After surviving a three-day coma upon arriving in Nashville in 2013, he released his debut album, “Real Bad News,” to critical acclaim. Having shared stages with Elizabeth Cook, Dan Baird, John Doe, and the late Todd Snider, Latham is preparing to release his latest album, “Mule Kick,” with his band the Lifers.

With her longtime friend Allen Thompson, KESHIA BAILEY co-founded the Nashville blues and soul band LadyCouch in 2017. Previously in the soul band Magnolia Suns, Keshia has leaned into the Southern rock-and-soul “revue”-style sound of Leon Russell, the Band’s “The Last Waltz,” and Delaney and Bonnie. LadyCouch released their debut album, “The Future Looks Fine,” in 2021 and its follow-up, “A Matter of Time,” in 2024.

Guest speaker ALICE RANDALL is a groundbreaking country music songwriter who graduated from Harvard University, holds an honorary doctorate from Fisk University, and is Writer in Residence of African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt. Her debut novel, a revision of “Gone With the Wind” called “The Wind Done Gone” (2001), was a New York Times bestseller. Alice’s memoir, “My Black Country” (2024), examines the Black roots of country music.   

Special thanks to house band Jamie Rubin and the 2020Hhz:
Billy Mercer
Joe McMahan
The Legendary Rich Gilbert
Jonathan Bright
Justin Amaral