Henhouse Prowlers (Thursday)
2025 Lineup | Past Years: 2024 Lineup | 2023 Lineup
THE HENHOUSE PROWLERS ARE BLUEGRASS AMBASSADORS.
Founded two decades ago with the simple desire to play original and powerful bluegrass, this Chicago-bred quartet now finds themselves at the intersection of performance, diplomacy, and education.
Onstage, the group’s enthralling performances give audiences a sense of how much they love what they do. On record – including their latest offering, 2023’s “Lead and Iron,” released via Dark Shadow Recording – the band explores their collective life experiences through songwriting and intricate instrumentation. While bluegrass is the undeniable foundation of the Prowlers’ music, the band bends and squeezes the traditional form into a keenly developed sound all their own.
Working with the U.S. State Department and under their own nonprofit, Bluegrass Ambassadors, the Prowlers have toured over 25 countries across the globe. The group’s experiences with people and musicians across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East have shaped the band’s worldview and broadened the group’s direction toward bridging cultural gaps with music, educational programs, and workshops. Using traditional American music as a foundation, connecting folk music, customs, and history the world over, the Prowlers incorporate international elements into their already robust repertoire of unique traditional American music.
Whether playing live or presenting seminars, wherever they are, the Henhouse Prowlers find and spread the commonality we share as human beings through the universal language of music.
You can feel it at every show.
“This bluegrass band has the right formula: heavenly harmonies on top of furious fingerpicking, trucking down the highway at 200mph.”
“The musical prowess of this bluegrass band was unlike anything I’ve yet to encounter in the city of Chicago. It’s straight-laced, tight-knit, barn-burning bluegrass with enough vocal harmonization to make Del McCoury blush.”
“The Henhouse Prowlers were well received in Nigeria, introducing the many audiences to bluegrass music and providing a taste of American culture. They performed with local musicians in Abuja and Lagos, and self-taught themselves a top Nigerian hit at the time. At each performance, their bluegrass version electrified the audience and brought hundreds to their feet, including students and adults alike. As cultural ambassadors, they set new levels of interaction with local audiences and musicians.”