An Evening with Ryan Montbleau
Ryan Montbleau
Montbleau first began performing in the early 2000’s around his native Massachusetts. In the years to come, he’d go on to collaborate with artists as diverse as Martin Sexton, Trombone Shorty, Tall Heights, and Galactic, and rack up more than 100 million streams on Spotify alone. Along the way, Montbleau would share bills with stars like Tedeschi Trucks Band, Ani DiFranco, The Wood Brothers, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and Mavis Staples, but it was his ecstatic headline shows—often more than 200 of them a year—that solidified his reputation as a roots rock powerhouse and an inexorable road warrior. NPR’s Mountain Stage compared his “eloquent, soulful songwriting” to Bill Withers and James Taylor, while Relix celebrated his “poetic Americana,” and The Boston Herald raved that “he’s made a career of confident, danceable positivity.”
Brooks Forsyth
Hailing from the mountains of North Carolina, Brooks Forsyth is a musician of Appalachia and beyond. He began busking on street corners in his hometown of Boone, NC and has since become a Nashville recording artist. Encompassing a variety of sounds within Americana, he has a large repertoire of original songs, and a versatile guitar style consisting of both flatpicking and fingerpicking techniques.
Throughout the last seventeen years, Brooks has performed solo and with a variation of musical ensembles across the U.S.A. He has played alongside artists such as Doc Watson and Sierra Ferrell, and opened for Ryan Montbleau, Cristina Vane, Town Mountain, and Willi Carlisle. He has also worked with producer Buzz Cason, and film director Nigel Dick. Additionally, Brooks was the lead songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist for the band The Major Sevens.
