About Craig

Craig Edwards brings together a broad range of American roots music, finding the common thread of rhythmic power, poetry, and passion that’s sustained these musical cultures for so long. Old-time fiddle and banjo, delta blues guitar, Cajun and Zydeco accordion, solo and group singing, and Irish and French Canadian dance tunes form the core of his music. Alone or with other musicians, he plays with the drive and conviction that connect these musical traditions.

Craig first began playing music as a child growing up in Staunton, Virginia. When no one was around he’d slip his father’s fiddle out of the closet and try to coax music out of it. Singing at civil rights events he went to with his parents helped form an early understanding of the deep power of traditional music. Inspired by the fertile music scene in the Shenandoah Valley, he began playing music at age eight and picked up guitar, fiddle, banjo, and later button accordion. Even in his teen rock’n’roll period he noticed that the musicians he most admired spoke of early blues and country players as inspirations.

In 1976 he attended the legendary Stompin’76 festival in Galax, Virginia, which featured many of the leading performers in what’s now called “roots music”- Doc Watson, Bonnie Raitt, Ry Cooder, Earl Scruggs, Lester Flatt, David Bromberg, John Prine, John Hartford, and many others. He began spending summers learning fiddling and banjo in West Virginia from honored old timers like Ernie Carpenter and Melvin Wine, and going from one fiddler’s convention to another, immersing himself in American roots music traditions.

Craig majored in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. He studied West African drumming with Abraham Adzenyah, and traveled to Ireland, Louisiana and Nova Scotia to learn from old-timers there. His two-part thesis featured a written “Study of Four Musicians of Central West Virginia” based on his visits there, and a concert with both solo and group performances called “The Roots of Southern American String Band Music”.

After graduating, he formed a series of bands playing Old-time, Irish, Cajun, Zydeco, blues and other roots styles. He served as director of the Mystic Seaport Sea Music Festival, incorporating maritime music from African-American, Afro-Carribean, Native Alaskan, and many other cultures into the festival during his tenure there. He was named a Connecticut Master Teaching Artist by the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, and has won numerous fiddle and banjo contests. Craig has performed throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe at festivals, concerts, and other venues. He plays with several bands in addition to performing solo and teaching.

"I like fiddle, old time country music, Cajun accordion, fingerstyle guitar, clawhammer banjo, delta blues, Kentucky fiddle tunes, West Virginia fiddle tunes, work songs, gypsy swing, Zydeco, Galax Fiddler's Convention, Mt. Airy Fiddler's Convention, Round Peak tunes, Can Kickers, New London, banjo ukelele, Edden Hammons, Skillet Lickers, Dock Boggs, Fred Cockerham, Tommy Jarrell, John Salyer, Nathan Frazier, Freighthoppers, Foghorn String Band, Clifftop Appalachian String Band Music Festival, Vera Ward Hall, Hobart Smith, Dillard Chandler, Leadbelly, Camp Creek Boys, Frank Hutchison, Louie Bluie, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Pine Hill Haints, Paul Brockett Roadshow, and Monday night old time jams at the Captain Daniel Packer Inn in Mystic CT from 10 pm to closing."