Lessons

Brett Ratliff teaches and performs traditional Appalachian music both at home and abroad. His focus is on labor-rights songs of his native eastern Kentucky coalfields and traditional mountain banjo styles learned from his many mentors throughout the region.

Ratliff has been invited to share music and stories of his home at such venues as: The Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, in Port Townsend, WA; Hummingbird Music Cultural Exchange in Pátzcuaro, Mexico; Third Man Records in Nashville, TN; Nimble Fingers Music Festival, in British Columbia, Canada; the Swannanoa Gathering in Swannanoa, NC; Augusta Heritage Old-Time Week in Elkins, WV; and Sore Fingers Week in Oxfordshire, England. He has also performed on more than a dozen recordings, including those for Smithsonian Folkways, The Kentucky Center for Traditional Music, Old Town School of Folk Music, and The Oxford American. Ratliff’s solo records include Cold Icy Mountain (June Appal Recordings, 2008), Gone Boy (Emperor Records, 2017), and Whitesburg, KY (June Appal Recordings, 2021), receiving critical acclaim from such outlets as No Depression, Maverick Country Music Magazine, and The Museum of Americana.