For eight years, Cathie Ryan was a lead singer and bodhran player for Cherish the Ladies, an all–woman Celtic music group from New York City. She went out on her own in 1995, and has since established — and enforced — her own identity.

Anybody who lived through the 1970s will remember the rise of the Midwestern rock ‘n’ roll bands — REO Speedwagon, Kansas, Styx — and their dominance, for about half the decade, on the record charts.

Keller Williams is a hell of a guitar player. Like the late, great Michael Hedges — one of his idols — Williams handles his acoustic like the frets are on fire, and he has to snuff the flames as fast as he can, one fingertip at a time.

Most of the world doubtless knows Gordon Lightfoot through his run of hit singles in the 1970s: “If You Could Read My Mind,” “Sundown,” “Carefree Highway” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Fair enough.

After five years as a member of Drive–By Truckers, Jason Isbell jumped from the cab in 2007. The Athens–based band had become one of the best–kept secrets in southern rock ‘n’ roll, with its smoking, amps–on–11 voyages through choogly Americana and other derivatives of good old–fashioned amplified shitkicking.

When Sweet Honey in the Rock sang at the White House, a a year ago this week, First Lady Michelle Obama  introduced the Grammy–winning vocal ensemble as “a national treasure” and “one of my favorite groups in the whole wide world.”

With a deeply masculine baritone voice that let a hint of vulnerability and anguish peek through, Clarence Carter was one of the most distinctive rhythm ‘n’ blues singers of the 1960s.

 Ever since their song “Lick It” was included in the fourth season of Showtime’s The L Word, God–des and She have been lauded as the high priestesses of lesbian hip hop.

The greatest honor an author can receive is when their work not only reaches, touches and moves people, it flourishes over generations and continues to inspire long after the writer herself has moved on.

The late Chet Atkins was indisputably Tommy Emmanuel’s biggest fan. “I think he’s probably the greatest finger–picker in the world today,” said the greatest finger–picker in the world (Atkins was famously humble) of his Australian protege. “He’s inventive, fearless and has a flawless sense of rhythm. He’s a great showman, too.”

On the 10th annual International Guitar Night tour, four exemplary musicians are coming together to make extraordinary music.

It’s the next logical step after televised Madden tournaments instead of real football games, and concerts by people playing Rock Band instead of musical instruments: Live music performed with Nintendo Wii.

With a big thumbs up from Symphony magazine, which put her on its cover and called her “an emerging artist to watch,” violinist Elena Urioste had a pretty good 2009.

Ben Kweller is 28, but he looks like he’s 13, which is actually how old he was when he made his first record, as part of a Texas–based punk/pop band called Radish.

Jim Brickman might be the most successful instrumentalist in contemporary music. At any rate, his official Web site calls him “America’s Romantic Piano Sensation.”