Taj Mahal doesn't wait for permission. If a sound intrigues him, he sets out to make it. If origins mystify him, he moves to trace them. If rules get in his way, he unapologetically breaks them. To Taj, convention means nothing, but traditions are holy. He has pushed music and culture forward, all while looking lovingly back.
Punch Brothers, formed in 2006, are a virtuosic quintet featuring mandolinist Chris Thile, guitarist Chris Eldridge, bassist Paul Kowert, banjoist Noam Pikelny, and violinist Brittany Haas. Known for pushing the boundaries of acoustic music, the band has garnered critical acclaim, including a Grammy for Best Folk Album for All Ashore (2018). The Washington Post applauded them for taking “bluegrass to its next evolutionary stage, drawing equal inspiration from the brain and the heart.”
The music lives on. For three decades, The Mavericks carved out their Grammy-winning sound — a multicultural version of American roots music, blending stateside influences like country and rock & roll with the border-crossing textures of Cuban grooves, Tex-Mex twang, and Latin swagger — under the direction of Raul Malo. Raul wasn't just the band's frontman; he was its larger-than-life patriarch, with a booming baritone hailed by Rolling Stone as "operatic, spiritual, casually elegant, and wholly captivating." With help from musicians like Paul Deakin, Robert Reynolds, Eddie Perez, and Jerry Dale McFadden, Malo turned The Mavericks into modern-day legends on their own terms.