“In their artistic practices, the NEA National Heritage Fellows tell their own stories on their own terms. They pass their skills and knowledge to others through mentorship and teaching,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “These honorees are not only sustaining the cultural history of their art form and of their community, they are also enriching our nation as a whole.”

A sought-after musician, Cleveland, 41, has also performed with such noted artists as Vince Gill, J.D. Crowe and the New South, The Kruger Brothers, Tim O’Brien, Andy Statman, and Marty Stuart, among others. “He plays fearless and it’s intoxicating to play with him because he makes you play fearless,” says Gill. “He takes no prisoners but he plays with a restraint and a soul. He plays without abandon. It’s wicked to see how much he pulls out of a bow. He’s untouchable.”

Here’s a link to a recording of Michael Cleveland performing “Tall Fiddler”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcwx6AifG7Q.

A film celebrating the National Endowment for the Arts 2022 class of artists and tradition bearers premieres this fall on arts.gov, where more information on the NEA National Heritage Fellowship and a complete list of recipients can also be found.

A pioneer among producers of outdoor music festivals, Wein (pronounced WEEN) created the renowned Newport Jazz Festival in 1954 and the Newport Folk Festival, which has been held in or near the coastal Rhode Island resort city since 1959.

The Newport Folk Festival has featured a wide array of established and emerging artists over the years and helped to launch the careers of such artists as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan during the 1960s. Pete Seeger was among the folk luminaries who backed Wein when he launched the Newport Folk Festival. “Working with Pete has been one of the joys of my life and it’s influenced me in my relationships with people and artists in general,” Wein told AcousticMusicScene.com in 2012. “It’s because of that that I became deeply involved with the traditions of folk music.” However, Wein never felt constrained to just book artists whose music neatly fit into the “folk” genre; Dylan’s electrifying performance at the festival in 1965 shocked folk purists.

Born on October 3, 1925 in Lynn, Massachusetts, Wein grew up in Newton, near Boston. An accomplished jazz pianist, who led his own band for a while, Wein, nevertheless, opted to focus his career on presenting music — rather than performing it. A former Boston jazz club (Storyville and Mahogany Hall) and record label owner, artist manager, music columnist and, in later years, an executive board member of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Wein also wrote Myself Among Others: A Life in Music (Da Capo Press, 2003), an autobiography that has become a major reference on jazz history. Within its pages he noted that “the thing that has given me the most gratification in my life” was the acceptance that he received as a player himself from such jazz luminaries as Lester Young and Sidney Bechet.

“Jazz came out of a folk tradition, although they [jazz and folk music] went in different directions as years went by,” said Wein during that January 2012 interview with AcousticMusicScene.com. He noted that the relationship between the two was the impetus behind the popular New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival that he created in 1970.

Citing what he called “a staggering career” and calling him “a towering icon among icons,” Mike Ross, the outgoing chair of APAP’s board of directors, presented the award to Wein during an awards ceremony and luncheon at the Hilton New York in Manhattan, a highlight of the 55th Annual APAP Conference that took place there and at venues around the city, Jan. 6-10.

The Newport Folk Festival, slated this year for July 28-29 at Fort Adams State Park, has featured a wide array of established and emerging artists over the years and helped to launch the careers of such artists as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan during the 1960s. Pete Seeger was among the folk luminaries who backed Wein when he launched the Newport Folk Festival. “Working with Pete has been one of the joys of my life and it’s influenced me in my relationships with people and artists in general,” Wein told AcousticMusicScene.com. “It’s because of that that I became deeply involved with the traditions of folk music.”

An accomplished jazz pianist and an executive board member of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Wein also is the author of Myself Among Others: A Life in Music (Da Capo Press), an autobiography that has become a major reference on jazz history.

“Jazz came out of a folk tradition, although they [jazz and folk music] went in different directions as years went by,” said Wein. He noted that the relationship between the two was the impetus behind the popular New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival that he also created.

Wein has been honored by many organizations, educational institutions, publications and heads of state over the years. As previously reported on AcousticMusicScene.com, he received the first Power of Song Award during a benefit concert last October for Clearwater, a nonprofit organization launched by Seeger and others more than 40 years ago.

Wein, who was recognized with a Jazz Masters award as Jazz Advocate by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2005, also participated in an hour-long panel discussion “NEA Jazz Masters & Jazz Futures: Playing It Forward,” that preceded the awards luncheon. Wein also has been honored by White House celebrations under Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and received France’s highest honor (the Legion d’Honneur) as well as the Bernardo O’Higgins award from the president of Chile.

The Association of Performing Arts Presenters is a Washington, D.C.-based national nonprofit service and advocacy organization dedicated to developing and supporting a robust performing arts presenters field and the professionals who work within it. More information on the association may be found online at www.apap365.org. A report on some of the many workshops and artist showcases that took place during the APAP Conference will be posted on AcousticMusicScene.com in coming days.

A son of composer Ruth Crawford Seeger and noted ethnomusicologist Charles Seeger, Mike Seeger also is a half-brother of Pete and brother of Peggy. Born into a musical family and weaned on field recordings of southern rural music and his parents singing of those folk songs, Seeger learned to play the autoharp at age 12. He later picked up the banjo, fiddle, guitar, mandolin and harmonica.

Now 75, Seeger has been performing and recording traditional American string music since the 1950s and can be heard on dozens of albums. Many of these were released by Folkways Records, for which he also made a number of field recordings to help preserve America’s musical traditions and folk heritage.

In mid-1958, Mike Seeger joined John Cohen and Tom Paley to form The New Lost City Ramblers, a vocal and instrumental urban folk group that helped to popularize and spark renewed interest in traditional string band music and played a major role in the 1960s folk revival as it evolved to include bluegrass and unaccompanied ballads in its repertoire. As a member of the Ramblers, Seeger played at the very first Newport Folk Festival. The New Lost City Ramblers not only based much of their music on the old-time cultural stylings of the 1920s and 1930s, but they also helped introduce traditional performers from the rural south to urban audiences and influenced a number of other musicians – including The Byrds, Ry Cooder and Bob Dylan. Seeger also was a member of Strange Creek Singers with Hazel Dickens, Alice Gerrard, Lamar Grier and Tracy Schwarz.

Along with ten other recently named 2009 NEA National Heritage Fellowship recipients, Seeger will be feted in Washington, D.C. in September during a series of events slated to include a banquet at the Library of Congress and an awards presentation on Capital Hill.