As a budding performer, Max apprenticed in the rarefied musical micro-climate of northern New Mexico, where troubadours like Michael Martin Murphey and Ray Wylie Hubbard helped foster a Western folk sound both cosmic and cowboy. Gomez has assumed stewardship of that lineage by producing the Red River Folk Festival, a boutique event held annually in late September in the musical mountain village of Red River, NM.
Judging by the company he keeps, Gomez is positioned to emerge as a prominent voice of Americana's next generation. He has shared billing on hundreds of stages with stalwarts of the genre like Shawn Mullins, James McMurtry, Buddy Miller, Jim Lauderdale, Patty Griffin, and John Hiatt. His classic-and-contemporary reading of "He Was a Friend of Mine" proves the point.
Jack Barksdale is a folk/Americana singer/songwriter from Texas. Inspired by folk, rock, and blues legends, Jack started performing original music at the age of nine and has already shared the stage with Wynonna Judd, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Junior Brown, John Fullbright, and Hayes Carll.