Roy Blount Jr.

The New York Times Book Review has called Roy Blount Jr. "one of America's wittiest writers." Readers of his articles in The Oxford American, Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Vanity Fair, GQ, National Geographic, Rolling Stone and The New York Times could tell you that. So could fans of his 20 books, including the most recent, Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South (Knopf). He has been honored as a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library and a Literary Light by the Boston Public Library. On radio, he is a panelist on NPR's news quiz show, Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me. Born in Indianapolis and raised in Decatur, Georgia, Blount makes his home in western Massachusetts and Manhattan.

Nellie McKay

She started out wanting to be a jazz musician. Now when singer, songwriter, actor, stand-up comedian and activist Nellie McKay sits down at the piano or picks up the ukulele, you're apt to hear some blend of jazz, pop, hip-hop, cabaret or vaudeville. The London-born, New York-based performer — who spent her teenage years in the Poconos — has found quite a following with her quirky musical approach. She's nothing if not outspoken, and the causes she holds dear — animal rights, for instance — are apt to turn up in her unpredictable song lyrics. Her 2004 debut CD was called Get Away From Me — a play on the title of Norah Jones' Come Away With Me. Her latest recording, Obligatory Villagers (Hungry Mouse), was released last fall.

Chuck Mead

Many know Chuck Mead as the lead guitarist of the wildly popular country band BR549, which got its start doing four sets a night in the store window of Robert's Western World in Nashville and went on to become — as The New York Times wrote — "one of the best groups to ever walk out of the roadhouse circuit and record an album." Before there was Nashville, there was Lawrence, Kansas, where Chuck grew up and started his music career. He was in several bands — The Homestead Grays, Pagan Idols, The Blinkies, Rabbit Scat — before moving on to Tennessee and forming BR549. Calling themselves "the hardest-rocking and hardest-working, here-to-stay band in Country today," they've put out bunch of CDs. The most recent, Dog Days, is on the Dualtone label.

John Niemann

After playing electric bass in a high school rock 'n' roll band, John Niemann took up guitar, fiddle, mandolin and mandocello. He was a member of Peter Ostroushko's quartet The Mando Boys, and he spent seven years with the bluegrass group Stoney Lonesome.

J.T. Bates

J.T. Bates started playing drums when he was seven. By the time he was 15, he was sitting in with his dad's big band. Since then, he has backed up countless musicians, as well as working with his own bands — Fat Kid Wednesdays and Poor Line Condition.