Featured Band Profiles

Have you Herd? Donna the Buffalo at The Green Parrot!

Donna the Buffalo brings it’s feel-good, groove-oriented, danceable, socially-conscious music to the Green Parrot with shows at 10 PM on Friday, January 2nd, and at 5:30 and 10 p.m. on  Saturday, January 3rd and 5:30 and 9 on Sunday, January 4th.

It all began over 20 years ago with roots in old time fiddle music that evolved into a soulful electric Americana mix infused with elements of Cajun/zydeco, rock, folk, reggae, and country. Donna the Buffalo is known for touring the country, remaining fiercely independent as one of the industry’s most diverse roots-music bands and has “earned a reputation as one of the most respected, eclectic and hardest-working acts today,” praises Encore.

“Donna the Buffalo is in the enviable position of being a homegrown entity, a group that finds itself outside the coloring lines of the accepted formula, a formula that is now in the past tense… People doing what they love, and better, sharing that passion to the benefit of the public, is the strongest business formula ever written. Donna the Buffalo is living proof of that. Lucky for them. Lucky for us. Everybody wins!,” states Beat Magazine.

The dynamic songwriting tandem of vocalists Jeb Puryear and Tara Nevins have penned over 180 songs in their collaboration with DTB and have many more in the taking. As of late, Nevins and Puryear have also been known to perform as a duo on air and at live shows, which is always enjoyable to the fans to hear their favorite DTB songs in stripped down arrangements.

The band’s 2008 release Silverlined, on Sugar Hill Records, rose to #8 on the Americana Music Chart. They have also been busy writing new music for a 10th album with the current band lineup of Puryear on guitar, Nevins on fiddle, guitar, accordion, and scrubboard, keyboardist Dave McCracken, bassist Kyle Spark, and drummer Mark Raudabaugh.

Donna the Buffalo fervent fan base, self-named The Herd, follows the band with zeal and has created a unique and supportive community online and at DTB shows acrossthe nation.

“The main thing I like to say about The Herd is that you don’t have to do anything to be a member. You just have to like a song,” Puryear said.

“All those people that come and follow you and you recognize them and you become friends with them — you’re all moving along for the same purpose. It is powerful. It’s very powerful, actually,” Nevins told The Roanoke Times.

As an extension of this community and the band’s dedication to live roots music, Donna started, and are still the driving force behind, the 20-year-old Finger Lakes Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance in Trumansburg, NY and the bi-annual Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival in Silk Hope, NC. February 2012 marks the first year for the Virginia Keys Grassroots Festival in Florida.

DTB are regulars at Merlefest (NC), Suwanee Springfest & Magnolia Fest (FL), All Good (WV), Floyd Fest (VA), and The Great Blue Heron Festival (PA) amongst others. You can also see them in 2011 at Nateva (ME), Del Fest (MD), DuneGrass (MI), Head Jamz (TN), Targhee Bluegrass Fest (WV), Smilefest (NC) and a variety of other venues across the nation.

Donna the Buffalo, as a band and its individual members, have had the opportunity to play with and/or record with musicians such as Jim Lauderdale, Preston and Keith Frank, Railroad Earth, Bela Fleck, John Paul Jones, Bill Kreutzmann, The Avett Broothers, Del McCoury, Tim O’Brien, Vice Wernick, Abigail Washburn, Mamadou Diabate, Los Lobo, Rusted Root, Claire Lynch, David Hidalgo, The Duhks and Amy Helm, just to name a few.