Thomas Sneed & Ben Winshop

Ben Winship has been performing at the Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival since its inception - initially with Loose Ties and more recently with Brother Mule, Kane’s River and the Growling Old Men. A nationally recognized mandolin player, singer-songwriter and recording engineer, Ben plays bluegrass, swing, blues and old time and has taught workshops from Alaska and Canada to West Virginia and Europe.

A mandolinist and musical historian, Thomas Sneed has performed at numerous musical festivals and venues including the Grand Old Opry, the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Merlefest, the Kennedy Center and the "Down From the Mountain Tour," which featured music from the movie "Oh Brother Where Art Thou." His mandolin playing was featured in the motion picture "Cold Mountain." He has worked with the Center for Appalachian Studies in Tennessee collecting oral histories with musicians. Thomas has degrees in Environmental Studies and Wilderness Studies from the University of Montana. He enjoys exploring wilderness with his mandolin and telemark skiing and spent many years leading expeditions in southern Utah and the Northern Rockies in addition to exploring many third world counties.

"Cool of the Day" was written by Jean Ritchie, the mountain dulcimer player and legend of folk music who was born in Kentucky. The song is mostly associated with coal mining issues in Appalachia, but holds a bigger reference to the earth as a garden.  To me the "cool of the day" can refer to that wonderful crepuscular moment of dusk and dawn when nature seems especially alive with sunlight and changing temperatures. - Thomas