Roxanne McDaniel

Roxanne McDaniel is a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in Johnson City, Tennessee. 

A graduate of the East Tennessee State University Bluegrass program, her music incorporates elements of traditional Appalachian music, bluegrass, country, Celtic, rock, and pop. She performs as a solo artist, as well as with her backing band, The Big Bad Buzz. 

She leads a dulcimer-based after school music program in Johnson City as part of an educational nonprofit: Art Transforms. She also teaches weekly group classes at her local community center. 

In 2023, she was the recipient of a Tradition Bearers Fellowship from Central Appalachian Living Traditions. Through this fellowship, she partnered with area nonprofits to give children in Northeast Tennessee the opportunity to build their own cardboard dulcimers at no charge. She later appeared at the Richmond Folk Festival to perform and provide a demonstration of her project. 

She has been an artist in residence at the Hindman Settlement School in eastern Kentucky where she has conducted dulcimer workshops with local school children. Her most recent workshop, however, was for the Knoxville Area Dulcimer Club.

She has recently taken a position in historic Jonesborough, Tennessee at The McKinney Center: Jonesborough’s Mary B. Martin Program for the Arts. She has appeared on NPR as well as the cover of Dulcimer Players News. She is currently working on her first full-length album.