Jack and Chris Bradshaw, ragtime piano duo artists from Gilroy, Calif., are bringing their unique sound to Sutter Creek again this year.  Jack's four-hand arrangements of popular rags, cakewalks, marches and novelty numbers are played with a sparkle reminiscent of old-time piano rolls. This lively pair has also appeared at the West Coast, Scott Joplin, Blind Boone, RagFest, Shaniko, Cascade, and the Fresno Flats Ragtime Festivals, The Ragtime Corners of the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee, and Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo. The rollicking road to ragtime thus far has taken them to 11 states and Canada.

Jack also plays classic and new ragtime solos to round out their programs. Jack and Chris each hold advanced degrees in music and perform regularly at Sacramento Ragtime Society and South Valley Music Makers meetings.

Tom Brier, affectionately dubbed "Hot Rod Tommy," used to be California’s greatest ragtime secret until the summer of 2001, when he made his debut to tremendous applause (and much jaw-dropping) at the Scott Joplin Festival in Sedalia, MO and the Blind Boone Festival in Columbia, MO. In his early thirties, this composing genius and pianist extraordinaire, hails from Oakdale, a Central Valley farming community south of Sacramento. He currently lives in Sacramento where he works as a programmer/analyst for the County of Sacramento. Tom caught the ragtime bug when his parents purchased a Schubert mechanical player. He was only 4, but when he started picking out tunes he heard on the piano rolls, his parents immediately found him a piano teacher. Soon Tom was notating his own music and by age 11, he had composed nearly a dozen rags. Today he has well over 160 ragtime compositions to his name (more than 200 if collaborations with other composers are counted), all remarkably original but clearly demonstrating his depth of understanding of early ragtime subtleties. In 1985, at age 14, Brier made his first appearance at the Sacramento Ragtime Society meeting, blowing everyone away with his signature rapid-fire left hand runs. Since that time, Brier has been a mainstay at the Ragtime Corner of the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee, the West Coast Ragtime Festival, and recently our Mother Lode Ragtime Society gatherings. He has recorded six CDs, has a vast ragtime sheet music collection, is noted for performing and popularizing extremely rare but wonderful rags, and for inspiring pianists to attempt to keep up with him.

Marty Eggers is well known on the West Coast as a top-notch ragtime pianist and bassist. Marty's music career began in Sacramento where as a teenager he helped found the Sacramento Ragtime Society in 1982. He has played with numerous San Francisco Bay Area jazz and ragtime groups, most notably John Gill's San Francisco JazzBand and the Black Diamond Jazz Band. His talent and versatility have led him into several varied and prestigious engagements, from recording with traditional jazz legend Bob Helm to touring Germany with Hal Smith's Rhythm Cats to playing in backup bands for both Leon Redbone and Butch Thompson. Marty is also a skilled composer and arranger of ragtime and traditional jazz.

He also appears with the Tichenor Family Trio (Trebor Tichenor, Virginia Tichenor, and Marty) and performs as a soloist at least once a month on Tuesday evenings at Pier 23 in San Francisco and Wednesday evenings at the Straw Hat Pizza Parlor in Rancho Cordova, CA.

Terry Waldo describes Marty as having "..an encyclopedic knowledge of the ragtime and early jazz repertoire ..."

Marty is married to ragtime pianist Virginia Tichenor (see below) and is a past president of the West Coast Ragtime Society.

Vincent Johnson, a ragtime composer, pianist, researcher, and enthusiast, was first attracted to ragtime music at age 12, after hearing his friends play Scott Joplin rags. He began learning "The Entertainer" and "Maple Leaf Rag" by watching and listening to the pieces being played by others. He began attending Rose Leaf Ragtime Club gatherings in order to learn more about this musical genre and listen to live performers play rags. Piano lessons soon followed, and soon he was learning pieces of varying ragtime styles, from classic ragtime to novelty piano.

In 2007, Vincent began to compose ragtime music as a hobby and has turned out over a dozen compositions to date. While his pieces are composed in various ragtime era styles, including foxtrots, cakewalks, classic rags, and stride piano, most of his pieces are composed in the novelty style popular during the 1920s. These pieces are influenced by his favorite composers: Arthur Schutt, Zez Confrey, Roy Bargy, Charley Straight, Max Kortlander, Les Copeland, Billy Mayerl and Joseph Lamb.

Carl Sonny Leyland blew everyone’s socks off at our 4th Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival (when he was lesser known) and has subsequently done the same at just about all the prestigious festivals in the country, including the Scott Joplin and Blind Boone Festivals in Missouri, the West Coast Ragtime Festival in Sacramento, Orange County’s RagFest, plus the Sacramento and San Diego Jazz Jubilees.  We’re lucky he loves us and agreed to thrill us with a return appearance this year. His ability to recreate obscure and primitive styles in the genre of barrelhouse, blues, and boogie woogie, combined with the originality and soulfulness of his own music, makes him one of today’s most exciting pianists. Plus he sings!

Born in the south of England in 1965, Sonny took up piano at age 15.  His inspiration was the boogie woogie music of Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson & Meade Lux Lewis. Fascinated by this style, Sonny traced it back to its Barrelhouse roots, incorporating the stylings of Jimmy Yancey, Cow Cow Davenport, Little Brother Montgomery and other notables into his own playing. In 1988, Sonny headed for New Orleans, where he lived for 10 years, appeared at the world-renowned New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and furthered his exploration of piano genres, including Blues, country, R&B, rockabilly, Rock and Roll, and, of course, traditional jazz and ragtime. He has toured in Europe and the United States as a solo act and with bands such as Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets and Big Sandy and His Flyrite Boys. Following a trip out west in 1995, Sonny relocated to California. He now resides with his wife in New Cuyama, CA. Sonny has several CDs to his name, his most recent with the Carl Sonny Leyland Trio, featuring Carl, Hal Smith on drums, and Marty Eggers on bass.

For more than 30 years, local jazz fans and those from remote parts of the United States and Europe have come to San Francisco's night spots and concert venues to hear jazz pianist Mike Lipskin perform sparkling musical gems in the Harlem Stride jazz piano style. Only a handful of contemporary jazz pianists can play Harlem Stride — the sound of Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, Duke Ellington, Willie "The Lion" Smith and Art Tatum. Mike has devoted his life to stride, is one of these exceedingly rare pianists, and has even created his own stride sound. He also writes new pieces in this vibrant full jazz piano sound, some of which can be heard on his many recordings.

Born in New York, Mike first fell in love with Waller records from his father's collection when he was 4 years old, and has been hooked on the style from then on. By the time he was in high school, he was traveling to Harlem, learning from the remaining stride masters such as Willie "The Lion" Smith, Luckey Roberts, Cliff Jackson, and the amazing Donald Lambert.

He has played Carnegie Hall, Davies Symphony Hall, 92nd Street "Y" and Newport Jazz Festival, and appears in the jazz documentary film A Great Day in Harlem which was nominated for an academy award. He supplied rare photos for a book on the same subject, and edited it as well as Fats Waller's biography written by Waller's son. Lipskin helped produce, and also appears in, an American Public TV documentary on the legendary stride pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith.

In the words of the Los Angeles Times jazz critic Leonard Feather, "Lipskin displays the virtues of technique, soul, freshness, and the spirit of youth in his flawless interpretations of Stride pieces." The late, great Eubie Blake also confirmed that "Mike Lipskin plays Stride bass with perfect accuracy." The legendary record producer Jerry Wexler adds: "He's fantastic 'cause first of all, he's got chops. He doesn't fumble; he's got that stride thing." Fats Waller's guitarist, Al Casey, upon hearing Lipskin's latest CD, exclaimed, "I think I'm with Fats right now."

He practices entertainment and real estate law in San Francisco.

Larisa Migachyov has played the piano all her life and discovered ragtime in 2005, when she joined the San Antonio Ragtime Society. She has composed more than 20 rags and performed at various festivals around the country. Her latest CD, Oh, that Ragtime Chick!, features all her own compositions. She recently passed the California Bar Exam.

Will Perkins is a teenage pianist from a small town in the Central Valley of California called Riverbank. At age 11, Will began taking piano lessons. While he quickly started down the path of classical piano, his mother suggested learning The Entertainer. His piano teacher got a book with several ragtime pieces in it, and soon Will was learning a simplified version of Maple Leaf Rag. Full of ambition, he went to a local music store and picked up a book with several Scott Joplin pieces, and quickly learned the original version. And as they say, the rest is history.

Will also enjoys baseball, football, and is an avid Boy Scout. Will has played just about every instrument in the brass section, but has recently decided to focus solely on the piano. His love of all types of piano music can be seen by the venues at which he chooses to share his talent — whether it be at church or as the pianist for a recent High School Drama production of “Alice in Wonderland”.

In November of 2007, he placed 1st in the West Coast Ragtime Festival Youth Competition for his division playing Joseph F. Lamb's Cottontail Rag.

Stevens Price, former owner of the Sutter Creek Ice Cream Emporium, is the founder of the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival. After hearing his dad perform "boogie woogie" on the family piano, Stevens began picking out music by age 12 and was soon playing boogie and other styles as a self-taught artist. Then he went to college as a music and drama major, where he decided to take piano lessons. Needless to say, he had to unlearn certain techniques. When he discovered ragtime, Stevens became a regular at the Maple Leaf Club meetings in Los Angeles. He still remembers playing Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" with six other club members on six pianos. At the Ice Cream Emporium, Stevens still occasionally plays for the enjoyment of the customers, and due to the success of the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival, the ice cream parlor has become the ragtime center of the Mother Lode and home of the Mother Lode Ragtime Society.  Recently Stevens has taken to composing ragtime and has at least seven ice-cream flavored toe-tappers to his credit. Stevens is active with the Sacramento Ragtime Society, has performed at the Ragtime Corner at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee.

The Ragnolia Ragtette mixes the elegant to humorous gems of the ragtime era with some of the newer, favorite contemporary rags. Listen as this artful combination of 4-hand piano, tuba and percussion present parlor tunes that burst forth in high ragtime style. Playing the music that originated from the recreational houses on one side of the tracks and later made its way to the upstanding respectable, family homes on the other, Ragnolia brings the ragtime era to life. It’s ragtime with enthusiasm. This ensemble made its debut at the 2008 Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival.

The Ragtime Skedaddlers were formed in 2008 to play ragtime string band arrangements for two mandolins and guitar. First mandolinist Dennis Pash is well known to ragtime enthusiasts as the founder of the legendary Etcetera String Band. He is an extraordinarily expressive player. No one is better at bringing out the folk roots that underlie so many ragtime compositions. In addition to numerous festival appearances as a performer, Dennis has written and lectured on the development of string ragtime. Nick Robinson plays the second mandolin part which is unique to the published string arrangements. Nick has played a variety of musics, including American old time, klezmer, and Indonesian gamelan. Dave Krinkel is an accomplished guitarist who also plays with the traditional American old time band, the Tea Sippers.

Noted ragtime music reviewer Jack Rummel recently wrote of the Skedaddlers' debut album: "This isn't just music for mandolin players or string-band lovers. This is ragtime for ragtime lovers, and the Ragtime Skedaddlers are the real deal."

John Remmers, from Ann Arbor, Mich., is a retired professor of computer science with a serious addiction to playing ragtime piano. He is seen and heard frequently at ragtime festivals around the U.S., whether it be in open-piano after-hours sessions or as a billed performer. In addition, he dabbles in creative writing and has an interest in web design and programming.

Tim Rotolo made a splash as a walk-on performer during Open Piano sets at the 2008 Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival. A student at Upland High school in Southern California, Tim participated in the nationally recognized Highlander Marching Band for two years. He plays piano for two hours most Saturday nights at the Mt Baldy Lodge (and restaurant) and occasionally at Galli's Restaurant in Rancho Cucamonga. For three years, Tim studied with Johnny Hodges, who was a featured pianist on Main Street at Disneyland for 25 years.

Keith Taylor began playing ragtime in 1972. Until that time, his musical background was classically oriented. Earning a Bachelor of Music degree in piano and a Masters in composition, including studying composition in Paris, France, he continues to perform and compose both types of music. For many years he taught instrumental music in the Los Angeles Public Schools. He currently lives with his wife in Azalea, Oregon where he freelances as a composer and a pianist. Since boyhood, Keith has traveled twice a year to the Mother Lode to photograph the historic towns and to play every saloon piano he finds — tuning and repairing them while he's at it — a very popular fellow! In 1998 he dropped by the Sutter Creek Ice Cream Emporium, where he discovered another piano and Stevens Price, someone he hadn't seen since the two met at The Maple Leaf Club in Los Angeles 20 years earlier. Keith was the inspiration behind Stevens' decision to organize the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival of 1999, and that was such a success, Keith returned home and re-organized the Cascade Ragtime Society which now sponsors an early April Ragtime Festival in Roseberg, Oregon. Keith, along with Tom Bopp, is also responsible for initiating the Fresno Flats Vintage Music Festival held each February in Oakhurst, CA. Keith’s latest undertaking is the Annual Shaniko Ragtime and Vintage Music Festival held in a wonderful ghost town in Oregon each September.

Virginia Tichenor has been consumed by ragtime her entire life. She is the daughter of Trebor Tichenor, the noted ragtime scholar, pianist, collector and founder of  the St. Louis Ragtimers. She studied music at the St. Louis Community Association for the Arts and took advanced training from concert pianist, John Phillips. Always at the crossroads of the ragtime revival, her parental home houses the world's largest library of ragtime sheet music and piano rolls. Virginia grew up with legends like Eubie Blake, Max Morath and Butch Thompson chatting in her own living room. Her father is advisor-confidant for most of the ragtime community, so Virginia often heard new rags when they were forming in the minds of their composers. The topic of her college research project? The ragtime revival, of course!  In 1998, Virginia released her first solo recording, a CD entitled Virginia's Favorites. It includes four two-piano duets with her father, Trebor. It was so popular, the family has since released two other CDs, "The Tichenor Trio" which includes Virginia's father and her multi-talented husband, Marty Eggers, and most recently, "Ragtime Reunion - Tichenor Family Five" featuring Virginia, her dad, her husband, her brother, and her sister-in-law. She is the Vice President, and past President, of the West Coast Ragtime Society.