The fourth annual Back Porch Festival returns March 1-4, with all-star line-ups of American roots artists at the Academy of Music and The Parlor Room.

Del McCoury met David Grisman met at the first show Del ever played (on banjo) with Bill Monroe in the spring of 1963 at New York University in Greenwich Village. Three years later, Del & Dawg played their first gig together in Troy, NY at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. They both celebrated the arrival of first-born sons, Monroe Grisman and Ronnie McCoury, within a month of each other.

Molly Tuttle speaks softly. Her voice is both lilting and lucid, and when she says that she wants to create music that is truly original and unmistakably hers, her quietness shifts into a steely audacity that’s charming and almost funny––she’s only 24, after all. But then, you remember her songs. And it hits you: brash, beautiful originality is exactly what Molly is doing.

Honeysuckle is a progressive folk act that blends older influences and traditional instrumentation with modern effects and inspiration. Comprised of Holly McGarry, Benjamin Burns, and Chris Bloniarz, the trio can frequently be found performing in the Boston area and surrounding cities in the Northeast.