Della Mae

Della Mae formed in Boston in 2009, built around fiddler Kimber Ludiker with founding members Amanda Kowalski, Grace Van't Hof and Avril Smith. The band took its name from the traditional song "Big Spike Hammer" and released its first record, an acoustic EP, in 2010.

Celia Woodsmith joined in 2011, and the band's debut album, I Built This Heart, followed the same year. Her low, forceful voice paired with Ludiker's fiddle became the group's defining sound, carried through original songs and traditional numbers alike as the rest of the lineup changed around them.

The group recorded for Rounder Records, and its second album, This World Oft Can Be, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Bluegrass Album at the 56th Grammy Awards. Later releases, a self-titled album in 2015 and Headlight in 2020, kept the writing focused on narrative songs about work and place rather than standards.

Della Mae has toured for the State Department on cultural exchange trips abroad, carrying that bluegrass sound to audiences outside its usual circuit. Through repeated changes in personnel, Ludiker has remained the constant thread connecting the band's founding lineup to its current one.