The Martha Bassett Show

Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light / The Rough & Tumble / TBD

Thu, Sep 18, 2025

Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light

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Fresh off a first place win at the 2023 Thomas Point Beach Bluegrass Festival band competition, Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light have been captivating audiences throughout the northeast. With songs as sweet and biting as the nectar and venom in her voice, Sumner's lyric-forward writing and penchant for snaking chord progressions demand something far beyond folk conventions, highlighting the acrobatic range of her brilliant bandmates Kat Wallace (fiddle) and Mike Siegel (upright bass).

Sumner is no stranger to the stage. She spent her early career on the bluegrass circuit, singing and writing with the genre-bending Boston group Twisted Pine. Since setting out on her own, Sumner's songs have been critically acclaimed, winning the Lennon Award in the folk category of the 2021 John Lennon Songwriting Contest for her song "Radium Girls (Curie Eleison);" earning her a spot in the Kerrville New Folk Competition; and being chosen four consecutive years by WBUR/NPR as one of the top Massachusetts entries in the Tiny Desk Competition.

Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light released their debut LP in the summer of 2022 to critical acclaim.

Learn more at https://rachelsumnermusic.com/

The Rough & Tumble

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The Rough & Tumble are a folk/Americana duo, consisting of Mallory Graham & Scott Tyler. Forming in 2011, they spent 8 years full time in a 16ft camper with two big dogs, playing roughly 150 shows a year. At home at festivals, listening rooms, and house concerts across the country, their commanding stage presence, engaging performances and affecting songwriting won them official showcases at Folk Alliance International, NERFA, SERFA and the Independent Music Awards Americana Song of the Year for their song “The Hardest Part." In 2023 they received recognition for their work in New England as recipients of Club Passim's Iguana Music Fund. Only This Far, the band's most notable work, was released in 2023 and has been described as "quality songs, well written, well played, well sung and arranged, and a pleasure from start to end." In November 2024, The Rough & Tumble released Hymns For My Atheist Sister and Her Friends To Sing Along To, a collection of deeply personal, unifying and uplifting, humanist gospel songs.

Learn more at https://www.theroughandtumble.com/

Season sponsored by
  • Atrium Health - Wake Forest Baptist
  • Mast
  • Buckeye Advisors
  • Bowen Town & Country Furniture
  • Explore Elkin
  • ICON
  • G&B Energy
  • Hugh Chatham Health
In partnership with
  • Lowes Foods
  • The Carolina Experience
  • Piedmont Opera
  • Arts Council of Winston-Salem & Forsyth County
  • Reeves Theater
  • Historic Elkin
  • WFDD
  • ElectroMagnetic Radiation Recorders