Atlanta Area Friends of Folk Music
(AAFFM)
Fiddler’s Green February 21, 2026
RUPERT WATES / CHASING THE LIGHT
RUPERT WATES
By turns witty, erudite and moving, his songs will go straight to your heart.
Rupert Wates was born in London and studied at Oxford University. He has been a full time songwriter since the late 1990s, when he signed a publishing contract with Eaton Music Limited. In London he worked with some of the best performers in the city.
Moving in 2001 to Paris, Wates formed his own quartet and began playing live regularly. In fall 2006 he came to the US. He is now based in New York City and Colorado.
Since coming to the US, he has won more than 50 songwriting and performing awards. His music is an eclectic mix of acoustic, melodic art/folk, with flavors of jazz, vaudeville and cabaret. His twelve solo CDs have received outstanding reviews in the international online press and tracks from them have been played on radio all over the world.
Two full length tribute CDs to his material have been recorded: ‘Crazy Puzzle’ (2015) by Nashville-based performer Roxie Rogers, and ‘Wide Open Heart’ (July 2017) by Los Angeles vocalist Susan Kohler.
CHASING THE LIGHT
Chasing the Light is a recent collaboration among four musicians with deep roots in Atlanta.
Charles Absher —guitar, vocals
Bluegrass, folk/rock, Americana, and more. Writes and performs original material that is described as “relaxing and approachable, with lyrics that stand on their own as thoughtful, compelling poetry.”
Mark Bumgardner—upright bass
A lifelong choral singer (ASO/Robert Shaw), he recently took up the upright bass and now plays regularly at contra dances. His steady rhythm and warm tone support dancers and fellow musicians.
Pat Harris—percussion, vocals, flute
A long-time vocalist in various a capella and other choral ensembles, Pat is also the co-producer and host of UUCA’s Underground Coffee House. She and Dave Smith have been performing together for more than ten years.
Dave Smith—guitar, mando, harmonica, vocals
A lifelong musician, Dave has been writing songs for 20 years. They touch almost every genre, including audience-pleasing novelty tunes. Dave and Pat proudly perform with the Seed and Feed Marching Abominable.
Scots-Irish Music Program January 24, 2026
SCOTS-IRISH MUSIC
FREE COMMUNITY EVENT: SCOTS-IRISH MUSIC
A folk song, like a person, may well have a place on a family tree. Scots-Irish Music, a free public program, will explore the roots and branches of one immigrant group’s traditional music. The event will take place Saturday, January 24, 2:00 pm, at Legacy Park Auditorium, 500 South Columbia Dr, Decatur. It is sponsored by Atlanta Area Friends of Folk Music (AAFFM) and the Frank Hamilton School, in partnership with Irish America 250: The South and the Scots-Irish. Irish America 250 is a national organization dedicated to educating the public about the contributions of the Irish to American history and culture.
The 90-minute program will explore how the traditional Scottish, English and Irish ballads and dance tunes brought to colonial America by immigrants from Ulster were preserved and modified in Appalachia. AAFFM President Emeritus Chris Moser will moderate a discussion with Agnes Scott College ethnomusicologist Tracey Laird, balladeer Maggie Hunter and musician Mick Kinney. After the panel discussion Hunter will perform Old World versions and Appalachian variants of selected ballads and explain how and why they changed in this country. Kinney will do the same with fiddle tunes.
Chris Moser has been researching Scots-Irish (aka Scotch-Irish) history and culture for three decades. The veteran filmmaker is currently raising funds to produce a PBS documentary, THE SCOTS-IRISH – A MUSICAL HISTORY.
Dr. Tracey Laird is a Professor of Music at Agnes Scott College in Decatur. Laird is an ethnomusicologist specializing in Southern traditional music. She has authored or edited six books, the latest being Dolly Parton: 100 Remarkable Moments in an Extraordinary Life.
Maggie Hunter of Athens GA has been a singer in the Warblers (bluegrass), the Solstice Sisters (folk), the Humdingers (folk) and Maggie and the Mason Jars (Western swing, jazz, bluegrass). She hosts the weekly WUGA public radio show Just Folks, spanning a wide and varied range of folk music.
Mick Kinney is a versatile musician and educator who plays fiddle, country lap steel, swing guitar, old time banjo, Cajun accordion, and ragtime piano. He has taught at Swannanoa Gathering Old Time and Swing weeks, Mars Hill University’s Blue Ridge Old Time and Roots of America, Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, Alabama Folk School, and many other residencies. In addition to collecting and preserving Georgia traditional music, he records and performs with his sons as the Griddle Lickers and Hickhoppers and is on staff of the Frank Hamilton Folk School in his local Atlanta area.
For more information: chrismoser [at] bellsouth.net
Welcome! This site lists information about folk music and related activities in the greater Atlanta area and the Southeastern U.S. It contains:
- General and recurring information in an expanded directory format
- Links to other folk resources
- See the EVENTS Tab for Fiddler's Green and other AAFFM- sponsored concerts, workshops, and pickin' parties, as well as other events of interest in and around Atlanta.
In email blasts, you'll find details about current events and information on member-only activities like our famous "get-togethers". If you'd like to host a pick-'n-grin, let us know! See the EVENTS tab for upcoming concerts and pickin' parties.
Contact us at membership@aaffm.org to host a pickin' party, join our organization, find out about an upcoming concert, party or workshop, or to submit listings to the website.
See the 'History' tab for the history of the organization.
AAFFM sponsors a local monthly coffeehouse, Fiddler's Green, that features concerts that included traditional music, singer-songwriters, poetry and storytelling. As of August, 2016, it is held at First Existentialist Congregation of Atlanta. AAFFM Membership benefits include the email blasts (our mailing list will always remain private) and discounts on AAFFM sponsored concerts. Annual membership dues are $15 for individuals and $20 for families, $35 sustaining members. E-mail membership@aaffm.org for membership information or click HERE for our Membership Application.
AAFFM Needs YOU
Chris Moser, President
AAFFM
John McCutcheon
Smoke Rise, GA
April 7, 2019
Dear Friends,
I got a call, early on in my years of performing, from Betty Smith, a friend I’d met at the Folk Festival of the Smokies, inviting me to come do a show in Atlanta. A follow up call from Don and Laeta Smith sealed the deal and, sometime in the 1970’s I appeared in Atlanta for the first of many times. My host was a freshly-formed group, The Atlanta Area Friends of Folk Music. What I found was a devoted clutch of folk music lovers who not only presented concerts, but sponsored all sorts of events that encouraged people to play music themselves, to share the love of this music that is the root of all the world’s music. To get involved with the music, with one another, with the world.
Having this lovely relationship with Atlanta played a part in my decision to move here in 2006. And I thank you for that.
Over forty years later, AAFFM is still sponsoring events that are meeting places for Atlantans of all stripes and a watering hole for that wandering herd of performers still plying the boards out there. I get to see some of my far-flung fellow performing pals as a result of these. And I thank you for that.
But groups such as AAFFM do not magically sustain themselves. Communities must commit to survive. And in this age of hyper-tribalism it’s more important than ever to reach out, to stand up, to say, “This is the kind of community, the kind of world, I want to be a part of.” You’ll never see the musicians AAFFM brings into our intimate gatherings at the Fox or on Netflix. No, you have to go out, sit shoulder-to-shoulder with others and have that experience live and in person. You can learn how to play, how to sing, how to harmonize in jam sessions not sponsored by YouTube. And, in the process, help build a community that improves the lives of individuals and the collective community life of Atlanta.
Pete Seeger would have been 100 years old this year. He taught us what we could feel like, what we could do if we risked adding our voice to the others in his audience, if we dared to harmonize with a roomful of strangers. But we had to make the move.
So, my fellow Atlantans, make the move, risk, dare, and join me in continuing to support the Atlanta Area Friends of Folk Music. And for that I thank you, as well.
Take it easy, but take it!
Become an AAFFM Member!
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