The Rooster's Wife announces a stellar line up for a concert Friday, Feb. 5, at the galleries of Poplar Knight Spot, located at 114 Knight St., in downtown Aberdeen.

Mike Compton and Joe Newberry will take the stage at 8 p.m., with doors opening at 7 p.m. Admission is $12, with children under 12 admitted free.

Tickets may be purchased online at theroosterswife.org with credit or debit card, or at the door with cash or check. Poplar Knight Spot is fully accessible, with parking adjacent in the town lot.

John Hartford once said that Mike Compton knows more about Bill Monroe-style mandolin than the Father of Bluegrass himself.

Compton was born in 1956 in Jimmie Rodger's hometown of Meridian, Miss. He was exposed to old-time music at an early age, as his granddaddy was a fiddler. He picked up the mandolin at 15. Moving to Nashville in 1977, Compton played for the next three-and-a-half years with legendary N.C. banjoist Hubert Davis and the Season Travelers.

Recruited by Pat Enright for the Nashville Bluegrass Band in 1985, Compton appeared on the four albums that first brought the band to prominence. After working in the Catskill Mountains for a year, Compton returned to Nashville and joined John Hartford, playing with his band until Hartford's death in 2001. He was involved in Hartford's last half dozen recordings.

Mike received Grammy Award acknowledgement for playing the mandolin on two award winning projects, "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?", which was Album of the Year and Best Compilation Soundtrack Album, and "Down From the Mountain," Best Traditional Folk Album, which included artists such as Dr. Ralph Stanley, Norman and Nancy Blake, Alison Krauss and Union Station, Gillian Welch/David Rawlings, Emmylou Harris, The Whites, The Cox Family, The Fairfield Four, Chris Thomas King, NBB and John Hartford, to name a few.

He supplied the mandolin expertise for the sold-out "Down From the Mountain" tours which included the original soundtrack cast and Ricky Skaggs, Patty Loveless, the Del McCoury Band and Rodney Crowell.

Joe Newberry is a Missouri native and North Carolina transplant who has played music most of his life. His grandfather's fishing buddy was the great Ozark folk song collector Vance Randolph. Singing old Ozark songs was part of Newberry's upbringing, and he intimately knows the music of some of the great Missouri fiddlers.

His powerful and innovative banjo playing has won contests around the country, including first-place at the Appalachian String Band Music Festival.

A prizewinning guitarist, fiddler and singer as well, Newberry plays with Big Medicine, first-prize winner for Traditional Band at the 2002 Appalachian String Band Music Festival. Newbery plays banjo and sings with Bill Hicks, Mike Craver, and Jim Watson - three former members of the original Red Clay Ramblers - in addition to his latest musical adventure, the Grey Eagles, a trio with Rafe Stefanini and Jim Collier.

When not working as a writer and editor, he does solo and studio work, and teaches and performs at festivals at home and abroad.

Opening for these fine musicians will be Amelia's Mechanics, an all-female Americana trio whose instrumentation and vocal harmonies traverse classical, country and jazz genres, resulting in a sound best described as vintage country with a moonshine concerto. Their debut album, "North-South," produced by Jim Avett, has just been released and will be available at Poplar Knight Spot.

The band, whose name, album title and lyrics are inspired by the accomplishments of early aviatrix and aviators, explorers and pioneers, writes and sings about the mechanics underlying life's triumphs and tragedies.

The Rooster's Wife is a private nonprofit organization created to bring the best in culture to our area.

For more information, call (910) 944-7502, or visit www.theroosterswife.org.