Born and raised in Van Lear, Kentucky, Brett Ratliff is a multi-instrumentalist and lifelong apprentice of the Kentucky music repertoire. Ratliff performs and teaches the tradition widely, with appearances at the likes of the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes (Port Townsend, Washington), Sore Fingers Week (Oxfordshire, England), the Southern Foodways Alliance (Oxford, Mississippi), Celtic Connections (Glasgow), and Nimble Fingers Week (British Columbia).

Also a community arts organizer, he works in his home region to ensure the tradition remains a living one, connecting Appalachian art and social justice. In so doing, he has founded several longstanding Kentucky festivals that join entertainment with education and discourse and has produced four short documentaries on contemporary Appalachian folkways.

As a recording artist, he appears on more than a dozen albums, including Oxford American’s Southern Music Series 19: Kentucky (OA Recordings, 2017), Mike Seeger’s Just Around the Bend (Smithsonian Folkways, 2019), and three solo projects: Cold Icy Mountain (June Appal Recordings, 2008), Gone Boy (Emperor Records, 2017), and Whitesburg, KY (June Appal Recordings, 2021).

Today, Ratliff serves as the founding president of the nonprofit Kentucky Old-Time music, which provides infrastructure for grassroots traditional arts gatherings statewide, program director of WMMT FM, and manager of Appalshop’s Traditional music Project.