Etta Baker (1913-2006) was a master of a two-fingered picking style that enjoyed popularity among guitar players in the North Carolina Piedmont after the turn of the twentieth century.

Smith McInnis (1914-2011) played lively old-time dance tunes and hornpipes handed down from his Scottish forebears, who settled in the Cape Fear River valley of North Carolina where he lived all his life.

A.C. Overton (1926­-2007) played in a two-finger banjo style he learned as a boy in rural Chatham County, N.C.

Lauchlin Shaw (1912-1999) was an old-time fiddler whose knowledge and command of Piedmont North Carolina dance tunes was widely heralded.

The Happy Valley Pals are four old friends – Wayne and Margaret Martin, Gail Gillespie and Dwight Rogers – who have enjoyed each other’s company and musicianship for decades.