The Tillers

Smokin’ hot Cincinnati four-piece The Tillers have been thumping their own distinctive string band style folk music for more than a decade. Their earliest gigs were for coins and burritos on the city’s famous Ludlow Street, playing songs that were older than their grandparents – Woody Guthrie numbers, southern blues laments and anonymous relics of Appalachian woods, railroads and prairies. Their look doesn’t fit the stereotype – they are clearly recovering punk rockers – but that influence has given their sound a distinctive bite, with a hard-driving percussive strum and stomp alongside tender graceful melodies, all topped by crystal clear tenor harmonies. Six-time winners of the Cincinnati Entertainment Award for best Folk and Americana Act, The Tillers are magnetic showmen, mature musicians and colourful storytellers mixing traditional folk, bluegrass, jazz, punk rock and anything else they might run into.