Arizona Folklore Preserve

Gary Allegretto
2025-10-25 14:00 - 16:00, 2025-10-26 14:00 - 16:00 (America/Phoenix) | Arizona Folklore Preserve, 56 E. Folklore Trail, Hereford, AZ, 85615, United States
Gary Allegretto is the 2019 International Western Music Association (IWMA) Performer of the Year. Western Horseman Magazine raves, “Gary’s music transcends genres, generations and cultural barriers, yet is so professional, engaging and core to the cowboy that listeners can’t help but want to ride along a while longer and discover something new in a song.” Not only is Gary the best harmonica player you will likely ever hear, but he is also a remarkable singer, songwriter, guitarist, and a masterful entertainer. His talents have also earned him Grammy nominations, an Academy of Western Artist (AWA) Will Rogers Award, an EQUUIS Award, and a Best of the West Award. His songs have reached the #1 spot on the Western Music radio charts. His music is featured in major motion picture soundtracks, and he has provided interviews and performances for Western music films and television shows. Gary’s engaging and often laugh-out-loud songs tell stories drawn from his rich and diverse life experience in the West (including ranch hand, forest firefighter as a USFS Hotshot, and bouncer in a couple of rough honky-tonks).

Eric Ramsey
2025-11-01 14:00 - 16:00, 2025-11-02 14:00 - 16:00
Eric is a perennial favorite on the Folk and Blues Festival circuits, not only for his dynamic, engaging performances but for his open tuning and slide guitar workshops as well.
With soaring vocals and organic arrangements, Eric’s original compositions reflect his musical influences, but come from a place all their own. He writes from experience about the human condition – at times sensitive, at times humorous, always thought-provoking. His arrangements and delivery encompass a spectrum of styles, from delicate fingerpicking to raucous, bluesy bottleneck slide.
Eric lives in the Phoenix area with his patient, long-suffering wife, three kids and dogs of indeterminate pedigree. He can often be found in the garage, where his family prefer he practice….

Jerry Hall and Trick Shot
2025-11-08 14:00 - 16:00, 2025-11-09 14:00 - 16:00
Jerry Hall and Trick Shot have performed at Western music events in California, Wyoming, Arizona and Elko, Nevada. They’ve shared the stage with the likes of Baxter Black, RW Hampton and Waddie Mitchell. The band has opened for the Riders in the Sky, Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers and played alongside with Rex Allen, Jr., The Sons of the Pioneers and Sons of the San Joaquin.
The group have five albums to their credit, over twenty videos on YouTube of their live performances, and have been featured on RFD TV.
Jerry Hall is the featured vocalist and a sure enough cowboy, having been raised on the Gill Cattle Ranch in Springville, CA. He ropes and rides almost everyday. Ed Hughes sings lead and harmony vocals. He trains horses on his ranch. Randy Fowler is a long time cowboy in training and arranges most of the band’s music.

Michael Grande
2025-11-15 14:00 - 16:00, 2025-11-16 14:00 - 16:00
Michael Grande, one of the world’s beloved entertainers is returning this weekend.
Grande, who tours the world, only performs in Cochise County twice per year. A singer-songwriter and virtuoso guitarist, Grande brings laughter and tears to audience members as he moves from exciting instrumentals featuring his famous five-fingered picking technique and breathtaking guitar flourishes to his gentle, almost caressing of the strings, as his sexy, smooth voice, tells tales of soldiers, families and the great depression.
But if the song is a sad one, the mood is uplifted immediately by Grande inserting songs and stories of friends, family and animals: a little girl’s first horse, the loss of a stray dog that became a hero to a family it saved, and the romantic love story of an Arabian stallion and mare.
In between songs, Grande is known for his tales. Growing up in an Italian family, he tells of being a child in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he used to tie the tail of his coonskin cap to his bicycle and pretend it was a horse as he raced through the mean streets of Bensonhurst. In his mind and his dreams, he was always a cowboy, and he was always in Arizona.

The Nevermores
2025-11-22 14:00 - 16:00, 2025-11-23 14:00 - 16:00
Nancy McCallion
The daughter of an Irish-Scots immigrant and a Texas farm girl, McCallion grew up in Tucson. She heard — and was obviously influenced by — the Norteño sounds of her Southwest side neighborhood, her older sister’s Beatles’ records, and 1970s and 1980s radio rock, mixed with her dad’s Irish trad and her mother’s Texas old-time country. Throw in adolescent Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello and Pogues fixations and the cultural stew emerged as The Mollys’ drop-jaw repertoire. McCallion has continued to write and has resumed performing live and recording as a solo performer after The Mollys disbanded. McCallion has performed at the AFP several times with her husband, Danny Krieger.

Sabra Faulk
Sabra Faulk has been a Tucson music staple for 30+ years playing bass guitar and rhythm guitar in several bands, fronting her own band, and being a solo singer-songwriter. Her band, The Angel Band, headlined the 2012 Tucson Folk Festival. Her styles range from country all the way to funk.

Jim Jones and Mariam Funke
2025-11-29 14:00 - 16:00, 2025-11-30 14:00 - 16:00
Jim Jones and Mariam Funke are award-winning musicians from New Mexico, and are two-thirds of the band, The Cowboy Way. As a group they have been named Western Group of the Year four times by the International Western Music Association, and have taken home numerous individual awards from the IWMA, the Writers of America, the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, and the Academy of Western Artists. Their music captures the spirit of the West…the past, the present, and the future, as well as the values, challenges, and allure, while their lively shows feature tight harmonies, high energy and smokin’ instruments. They honor traditional cowboy songs and then bowl you over with their dynamic contemporary original Western tunes.

Peter McLaughlin
2025-12-06 14:00 - 16:00, 2025-12-07 14:00 - 16:00
Peter McLaughlin is an acclaimed acoustic guitarist, songwriter, vocalist, performer, recording artist and music instructor located in Tucson, AZ. He plays many genres and styles, and specializes in acoustic flatpicking and fingerpicking techniques. He was born in Washington DC, and his family’s roots are in Scotland and England by way of Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina. Early on, his parents, Bill and Nancy McLaughlin, brought music into the lives of Peter and his brother David. They were introduced to all types of music, had a family band, and were surrounded with love and encouragement.
Peter started playing the guitar at the age of eight and was very soon jamming at bluegrass festivals and fiddle conventions. He lived in Denmark in the early 70s, and attended a Danish high school. In 1974, Peter moved again, this time to attend Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, where he played with Tom Rozum (mandolin, fiddle, and vocals), Roger Smith (bass and vocals), John Zarske (rhythm guitar and vocals), and Frank Dedera (banjo) in the group Flying South, an acoustic string band specializing in bluegrass and early swing era jazz. A later incarnation of Flying South included Kirby Mittelmeier (mandolin and vocals) and John Willis (bass and vocals).
In 1983, Peter moved to Tucson, where he played music with banjo player Ross Nickerson in various bands, including the 1988 Telluride Band Contest winners, The Titan Valley Warheads, who Peter still plays with on occasion.
In 1991, Peter had the opportunity to reunite with his long-time pal, Tom Rozum, and joined Laurie Lewis, touring nationally and internationally for six years as guitarist and harmony vocalist with her band.
In 1992 Chris Brashear moved to Tucson. He and Peter struck up an immediate and lasting friendship and a strong musical bond and began performing and recording together.
In 1996, Peter released his first solo album, a CD entitled Cliffs of Vermilion, produced by Laurie. She, along with Tom, Chris, brother David, father Bill, and others appear on Peter’s stellar debut CD, which is on Dog Boy Records.
In 1999 when Chris recorded his first solo CD, Wanderlust, an excellent new bluegrass band formed out of that project when producer, Jody Stecher, along with Bluegrass Boy banjo picker, Bob Black, bassist, Forrest Rose, Chris and Peter started Perfect Strangers. Their self-titled CD, released on Rebel Records in 2003, was also produced by Jody.
Since the late 1980’s Peter has performed off and on with Bob Meighan, Earl Edmonson, Kirby Mittlelmeier and Brian Davies in a band affectionately known as The Dreadnutts. In 1991 they won the Telluride Bluegrass Band Contest.
In 2011 Peter’s current band, The Sonoran Dogs, was formed out of a tour with the late Japanese guitarist, Maro Kawabata. The “Dogs” continue to perform regularly at various festivals and concert venues. Their first CD was released in 2014 on Dog Boy Records.
In 2013 Peter was inducted into the Tucson Musicians Museum.
Contest Awards:
• First Place in National Flatpick Guitar Championship, Walnut Valley Festival, Winfield, KS (1988)
• Second Place in National Flatpick Guitar Championship, Walnut Valley Festival, Winfield, KS (1986)
• First Place in Telluride Bluegrass Guitar Championship, Telluride, CO (1988, 1991)

Joel Alden White
2025-12-13 14:00 - 16:00, 2025-12-14 14:00 - 16:00
Joel Alden White is a singer/songwriter from West Texas. Six-time nominee in the IWMA and recipient of the Academy Of Western Artists 2023 Song Of The Year. Joel has cowboyed and managed ranches in West Texas, been a Yard Manager for a West Texas Commercial Feedyard and a cattle buyer in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Arizona. Currently Joel is “technically” retired spending time with his wife, Kelly, in their home in Timbercreek Canyon just outside of Amarillo, making music, traveling, and performing. White’s first 2 albums found success on the Roots Americana Country Charts with singles charting as high as a #1 and 2, #2’s. At this time his EP “Once I Was A Cowboy” has been in the top 30 Album chart for the IWMA for the last 2 years. The title song, Once I Was A Cowboy, was the #1 song on the summer 2024 IWMA Western Radio chart.

Out of the Blue
2025-12-20 14:00 - 16:00, 2025-12-21 14:00 - 16:00
Out of the Blue started creating their “Bordergrass” style in the early 1990s. You already know three of the members if you’ve heard Way Out West or Dharmapoke at the AFP through the years – Tom Poley on guitar and banjo, Emmy Creigh on guitar and Slim Rost on bass. Donny Russell rounds out the Out of the Blue quartet on mandolin. The band has a reputation for their unique, signature vocal harmonies. Based in Tucson, they have traveled throughout the Southwest playing their distinctive original songs as well as traditional bluegrass and Americana covers. They have toured Europe 3 times and won 2nd place in the Telluride Band competition in 1998. The band members have received honors from the Western Music Association and Tom Poley has won 5 songwriting awards from The John Hartford Festival Songwriting Challenge. You can expect an energetic and fun performance in the acoustically pristine AFP that will feature some of their signature songs as well as some new gems added for these shows.

Eric Schaffer & Loren Dircks
2025-12-27 14:00 - 16:00, 2025-12-28 14:00 - 16:00
Eric Schaffer has been recognized as one of Southern Arizona’s favorite singer/songwriters, having been a finalist in the Great American Song Contest, the Passport To Nashville songwriting contest, a 3-time Tucson Folk Festival songwriting competition finalist and the winner of the 2022 Tumbleweed Music Festival songwriting contest. With a writing style heavily influenced by the great singer/songwriters of the 60’s and 70’s and a voice that has been compared to Kris Kristofferson and Steve Earle, his songs are sometimes sweet, sometimes melancholy, sometimes funny, and always well crafted. Eric has performed throughout the US and has opened shows for Clint Black, Blackberry Smoke, Marc Cohn, Lonestar and Darden Smith.

Loren Dircks is well-known as one of Arizona’s most accomplished guitar pickers. He was the front man and lead guitarist for the band Gila Bend when they pioneered “country-punk” in the ’90s and continues to play everything from jazz to folk to punk and country. Aside from his work with Eric and The Other Troublemakers, Loren still performs with Gila Bend and his new project, The Classless Chaps.

Doors open at 1 p.m., performances begin at 2:00 p.m. Reservations are preferred; however, walk-ins will be seated if space permits.

The Notorious No-Gig Girl Band
2026-01-03 14:00 - 16:00, 2026-01-04 14:00 - 16:00
With everything shut down in 2020, The Notorious No-Gig Girl Band formed when four friends who had met at the Desert Bluegrass Association workshops decided to break COVID quarantine and jam outdoors in a city park. Spaced well apart from each other, the group played and sang for the pure joy of being together and making music. Playing every week in (nearly) all weather, they developed a following among park visitors, and were especially popular with the under-4 set.
Jennifer Johnson on bass brings raucous good humor and a strong beat. Karen Dismachek on guitar and fiddle lays down a mean groove. Louise Courtney plays an unusually soft-spoken banjo, but has been known to let her rip on occasion. Suzette Sommerer on fiddle just plays whatever the heck she feels like. All four sing like angels (possibly angels with tarnished haloes), and their tight harmonies really bring the band together. Made up entirely of musicians who either took up their instruments late in life or who came late to bluegrass or both, they are a great example of how it is never too late to find passion for something new. Who ever thought that one day this group would be gigging? And no, they are not planning to change the name!

Dave Munsick
2026-01-10 14:00 - 16:00, 2026-01-11 14:00 - 16:00
Dave writes and sings of a west that many miss; a west of endless emotional landscapes unbroken by borders between people, times and places. These are stories and songs that go down smooth and stay with you awhile.
Besides songs, Dave writes and tells stories that resonate the adventures that his music has taken him on. He has produced 7 CDs of original music, and written and recorded themes for historical documentaries as well as compositions for government, commercial and private sectors. He also develops educational learning modules that immerse students in the pivotal themes of western history.
Dave is a performer, playing solo as well as with his bands. He has opened for or played fiddle, piano, and guitar for artists including Chris LeDoux, Lyle Lovett and Ian Tyson.
“Dave Munsick is a damned fine fiddle player!” – Ian Tyson
He gives educational workshops, arranges songs for his concerts and dances, and has had his music played on television as well as U.S. and European radio stations. His music has been reviewed in Western Horseman, Rope Burns, Eclectic Horseman, and Cowboy magazines.

Liz & Pete
2026-01-17 14:00 - 16:00, 2026-01-18 14:00 - 16:00
She’s Liz, he’s Pete, they are Liz & Pete. Liz Cerepanya and Peter Dalton Ronstadt join musical forces to explore material old and new. Liz’s heartfelt voice with Pete’s haunting harmonies and rich guitar arrangements captivate the mind and tug at the heart. After a few passing introductions in their shared music scene, Liz Cerepanya joined Peter Dalton Ronstadt on stage at Monterey Court in Tucson in the fall of 2019. They had had a brief opportunity to work up a couple of songs, including Rodney Crowell’s “Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight”, and an instant musical match was realized. The decision to make a record together was easy, and quickly Liz and Pete began exploring material including the timeless songs of Alan Garr, songs of their favorite songwriters and singers, new and old compositions by Pete as well as classic songs from his father Michael Joseph Ronstadt’s repertoire. Liz and Pete’s natural element is just the two of them on stage accompanied by an acoustic guitar and the Pennsylvania Stompbox.

Kerry Grombacher
2026-01-24 14:00 - 16:00, 2026-01-25 14:00 - 16:00
Kerry Grombacher writes contemporary western songs and plays guitar and mandolin. His song, Range of the Buffalo, was named 2021 Song of the Year by the International Western Music Association.
In the spirit of the troubadours of old, Kerry Grombacher’s songs paint vivid portraits and tell the fascinating stories of working cowboys and old camp cooks, roadside motels and prisons, wildland firefighters, cattle rustlers and wolf trappers – the landmarks and denizens of the west. You’ll find Kerry at Cowboy Poetry Gatherings and Folk Festivals, singing his songs, playing mandolin as a sideman, and picking in the jam sessions and around the campfires until the last song is sung.
Kerry was born in Kansas and has lived and worked in Texas, New Mexico, and Oregon. That’s taught him to admire the men and women who still work cattle and to respect the traditions of the West. His songs have found great acceptance among the poets, musicians, and fans who have heard him play, and they’ve been recorded by other western artists, including Jim Jones, Belinda Gail, The Texas Trailhands, Duke Davis, Trails & Rails, Earl Gleason, Ed Stabler, and Gary Prescott. One of his songs appears on the 2012 children’s compilation, Cowboy Playground, released by Putumayo World Music.
Kerry has sung his songs at events as varied as the Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering, the Newport Folk Festival, Cowboy Songs & Range Ballads (Cody, WY) and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. As a sideman, he’s played mandolin with a list of western performers that includes Chuck Pyle, Belinda Gail, Joni Harms, Wylie Gustafson, Eli Barsi, Ken Overcast, and Jean Prescott. Kerry sang at the dedication of the last memorial marker on the Chisholm Trail in Oklahoma, and he was featured on The Big Roundup website, www.cowboypoetry.com.
Grombacher regularly plays at performing arts centers, coffeehouses, house concerts and other music venues, and he’s performed on the syndicated television show, Louisiana Jukebox, and on River City Folk, a music program that’s heard nationally on public radio stations and on Sirius/XM Satellite Radio. In 2001, he gave a concert beneath the neon signs on the parking lot of the Sands Motel on Historic Route 66 in Grants, New Mexico and the owner named a room for him! His 2012 “Highway 281 Troubadour Tour” followed that US Highway from the Canadian border to Mexico, with stops along the way for concerts.
Kerry’s recordings include Range of the Buffalo, It Sings in the Hi-Line, Sands Motel, Riding for the Brand, Dreams of New Orleans, and Home to the West. He’s a member of the International Western Music Association and Folk Alliance International, and he endorses Elixir Guitar and Mandolin Strings.
Kerry Grombacher kgrombacher@yahoo.com
512-296-7833 (cell) www.kgrombacher.com

Belinda Gail
2026-01-31 14:00 - 16:00
ATTENTION: This event has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. New event details TBA.
Belinda Gail, “America’s Western Sweetheart,” was raised on ranches in Nevada’s Carson Valley and in the California Sierra Nevada foothills near Sequoia National Park. Her rich ranching heritage and love of the West runs deep in her music and evoke the character of the people, as well as the beauty, majesty, and deep connection to the land that only those who have lived the ranch life can truly capture. Ranching and the ‘cowboy life’ are very much part of the essence of this dynamic Western Performer.
Belinda is honored and humbled to not only be counted among the top female Western Music performers of this era, but she was recently listed as one of the top 50 Country and Western Entertainers of all time by American Cowboy Magazine in their collector edition entitled “Legends”. She has committed her full-time effort to this music for nearly two decades and crisscrosses this country taking her special brand of Western Music to the masses.
Doors open at 1 p.m., performances begin at 2:00 p.m. Reservations are preferred; however, walk-ins will be seated if space permits.

Old Pueblo Bluegrass Band
2026-01-31 14:00 - 16:00
The Old Pueblo Bluegrass Band has been delighting audiences with high-energy bluegrass music for five years. Bandleader Reid Griffin, on guitar and vocals, is a Tucson native. He has performed throughout the Southwest since the 1980s and toured Europe with his band “Griffin Brothers”. Steve Reed, on electric and upright bass and vocals, majored in music at Pima College, then made a long musical journey from classical to jazz and onward to bluegrass. Bob Frankot, on fiddle, has been steeped in bluegrass all his life and has played with the popular California bluegrass band “Hot Off the Press” through the 1980s before coming to the Old Pueblo.
