After leaving home at the tender age of 17, Mark Ross made his musical start playing in Greenwich Village in the waning days of the Great Folk Scare of the '60's. Since “leaving The Big Core ( the apple having long since been eaten),” he has lived and played in West Virginia, Kansas, California, Montana, and for the last quarter century, he has called Eugene, Oregon home. Mark has been nominated for a Grammy and an Indy, and has recorded for NPR, Red House Records, Sesame Street, Montana Public Radio, Flying Fish, and Daemon Records. Playing guitar, banjo, harmonica, fiddle, mandolin, dulcimer, autoharp, jews harp, and bass, Mark has played and performed with Utah Phillips, Pete Seeger, Malvina Reynolds, Steve Goodman, Roy Book Binder, John Hammond, Paul Geremia, Dave Van Ronk, Ken Perlman, and countless others over the past 59 years. He has also been named Minstrel to The Royal Court at The Hobo Convention in Britt, Iowa. Over the years he has had many odd jobs from logger, to record producer, to short order cook, and even substitute teacher, but through it all has become a master old time musician. His repertoire of over nearly 500 songs runs the gamut of American roots music, including ballads, train songs, blues, and western swing.

Related Experience: Guest lecturer on American folk music, railroad songs, labor songs and the history of American Labor and radical politics; Artistic Director and Producer of the Butte FolkFest, 1997-2000; Folksinger-in-Residence at New York Folklore Center