The Queen City Balladeers is an all-volunteer, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the traditions of roots music—what these days is known as Americana music—and folk performance in Cincinnati.

The Leo Coffeehouse is one of the oldest, longest running folk and acoustic music venues in the United States. The Leo was started in 1963, when a group of students at the University of Cincinnati formed the Queen City Balladeers and the Leo Coffeehouse.

The coffeehouse first opened in the basement of the University of Cincinnati YMCA and was originally called the Wise Owl. The named was changed to the Leo Coffeehouse and the music continued at the University Y for many years. The Leo moved down the street to Old St. George’s Church in 1999, and moved to its current home, Zion United Church of Christ in Norwood, in 2006.

Over the years, many nationally-known artists like John Denver and Utah Phillips have performed at Leo, but the coffeehouse is mainly an outlet for the many Tri-state area artists. These artists love performing to a “listening room.” where they don’t have to compete with pick-up lines and drunken conversations (as they do in bars) or the grinding of the espresso machines  (as they do in most coffeehouse.)

Just what is roots/Americana music? The origin of roots/Americana music was and is ordinary people who created music to express the emotions and experiences that emerge from everyday living. Back in the 1960’s, at the height of the folk music revival, much of the music of the day consisted of a mixture of protest songs and traditional ballads from previous centuries.

Today, the roots/Americana genre includes old-time traditional songs, newly written singer/songwriter acoustic songs, blues, Celtic, Cajun  zydeco, bluegrass, country, alt-country, and on and on.  It even can be said to include some areas of world music such as klezmer, for example.

Artists that fit comfortably under the roots/Americana umbrella range from Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, and Dave Van Ronk to ’60s musicians such as Bob Dylan, Tom Rush, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, and Judy Collins to country classics such as Jimmy Rodgers, Johnny Cash, Bill Monroe, and Flatt & Scruggs to  singer/songwriters such James Taylor, Shawn Colvin, Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, and John Prine, to more modern acoustic-based musicians such as John Mayer the Dave Mathews Band.

The list of artists and the kinds of musical forms within roots/Americana music continues to evolve.