The High Water Line

The High Water Line is a 5 piece group of Bay Area musicians who blend their diverse musical tastes and experiences to create a modern bluegrass sound all their own.

We can be found playing around the Bay Area a few times a month, and the members of HWL have performed all over the world, from New York to Shanghai and even in our own backyard at the CBA’s Father’s Day Festival.

While all the members of HWL come from outside CA, we call it home now and feel lucky that the amazing bluegrass community here has allowed us to come together and share our musical passions. We met in 2017 thanks to the amazing local jam and performance scene. Our shared values around working together to elevate our music to levels we couldn’t reach on our own resulted in our name, The High Water Line.

Hailing from upstate New York, holding down the Banjo spot, and singing with his powerful baritone voice, is Tyler Stegall. Tyler's driving banjo style propels the band along no matter the tempo. Clare Armenante comes from The Garden State. A classical violin player, she is both at home playing for symphonies and taking amazing breaks over traditional bluegrass music. Not only is Clare amazing on the fiddle, but she can sing all the parts better than the rest of the band put together. Also from New Jersey, the man responsible for keeping the band in time and bringing the funk, is bass player and singer Jim Toggweiler. Helping to keep the band moving is mandolin player Tj Carskadon, from WI. Tj’s harmony singing and driving backbeat help to define The High Water Line’s unique rhythmic feel. Last, but certainly not least, is our amazing guitar player all the way from Monroe, Georgia, Joel Cofield. The way Joel seamlessly blends blues with both traditional and modern bluegrass guitar styles, combined with his fantastic harmony and lead singing, round out HWL’s sound and help bring it a flavor all its own.

You can find our demo recording included in this packet and on soundcloud at https://soundcloud.com/the-high-water-line. We are planning to make a longer record in 2018 and are working on some new original material for that project now.