Appalachia in the Bluegrass Series: Brett Ratliff

Brett Ratliff is a 2025 Taproot Fellow and 2022 United States Artists Fellow in Traditional Arts. He teaches and performs traditional Appalachian musical styles and repertoire both at home and abroad, and he has contributed to more than a dozen recordings, including for Smithsonian Folkways, June Appal Recordings, The Kentucky Center for Traditional Music, Old Town School of Folk Music, and The Oxford American. Ratliff’s solo records include Cold Icy Mountain (June Appal Recordings, 2008), Gone Boy (Emperor Records, 2017), and Whitesburg, KY (June Appal Recordings, 2021), receiving critical acclaim from such outlets as No Depression, Maverick Country Music Magazine, and The Museum of Americana. Born and raised in Van Lear, Kentucky, Ratliff has also spent his career as a community arts organizer throughout eastern Kentucky where in 2005 he helped found Kentucky Old-Time Music, Inc., an all-volunteer nonprofit supporting infrastructure for the practice of folk and traditional arts in the Commonwealth.

Concerts presented as part of “Appalachia in the Bluegrass” are free and open to the public and begin weekly at noon on Fridays, in the Niles Gallery of the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music, located at the University of Kentucky’s Lucille C. Little Fine Arts and Design Library.

An annual series, “Appalachia in the Bluegrass” celebrates the old-time roots of American folk music, while simultaneously representing a variety of different musical expressions, featuring performances by noted Appalachian soloists, duos and groups. The “Appalachia in the Bluegrass” concert series is sponsored by the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music, the Appalachian Studies Program, and the Appalachian Center of the University of Kentucky.