Henhouse Prowlers in Chicago

Henhouse Prowlers are an American bluegrass band formed in Chicago in 2004. Their acoustic music is built around banjo, mandolin, guitar, upright bass and harmony vocals. They are known for albums including The Departure and Lead and Iron, their bluegrass arrangement of the Nigerian pop song “Chop My Money,” and cultural-exchange work that presents bluegrass to audiences outside its traditional setting. Henhouse Prowlers have toured internationally through American Music Abroad, a U.S. Department of State cultural-exchange program, combining concerts with workshops for musicians and students. The group performs as a four-piece string band, and its overseas work later developed into the nonprofit Bluegrass Ambassadors Foundation.

The Steel Wheels are an American roots band based in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Led by singer and songwriter Trent Wagler, the group plays Americana, folk and bluegrass shaped by fiddle, banjo, acoustic guitar, upright bass and close vocal harmonies. Its catalog includes the albums Lay Down, Lay Low, Wild as We Came Here and Over the Trees. In 2013, the band founded the Red Wing Roots Music Festival at Natural Chimneys Park in Mount Solon, bringing its own performances together with a multiday program of roots music. The Steel Wheels have also taken their songs to established events including MerleFest in North Carolina and the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in New York.