Pickers Anonymous

Pickers Anonymous is an old-time trio of multi-instrumentalists: Nicholas Edward Williams, Owen Grooms and John Benjamin Davis. All three sing. Williams plays guitar, banjo and harmonica, Grooms banjo and mandolin, and Davis fiddle, mandolin, guitar and banjo. The trio collects traditional material and runs it through its own filter.

Each member came from other projects. Williams is from American Songcatcher and The New Quintet, Grooms from the Travis Book String Band, Pretty Little Goat and Jenn and Owen, and Davis from the John Hartford Fiddle Project and Susto String Band.

Their first album, Patchwork, came out in April 2026. Its ten songs are reworked traditional pieces drawn from Appalachia, the British Isles and Black history in the Southeast, among them "Tom Dooley", "In the Pines", "Wildwood Flower" and "Railroad Bill", closing on "Old Chattanooga".