Donna The Buffalo
- Donna The Buffalo is Jeb Puryear (vocals and guitar), Tara Nevins (fiddle, guitar, scrubboard, vocals and accordion), Vic Stafford (drums), Dave McCraken (keyboard) and Jay Sanders (bass).
- This group began in 1987, with six friends who played old-time music, including fiddle, banjo and guitar and Puryear and Nevins began writing original tunes.  After months of private jam sessions, the sextet was offered a public gig at the now defunct Cabbage Town Coffee House in Ithaca, NY, not far from their hometown of Trumansburg, New York.
- The band began playing without a name and pressure soon followed to come up with one.  “Dawn of the Buffalo” was suggested and misheard, leading to the birth of Donna The Buffalo.
- The band combines reggae, rock, country, zydeco, Cajun and folk on top of the old-time fiddle music to create what is best described as original American dance music.  Tara Nevins describes it as “simple, straight-forward, melody-oriented and easy to take in.”
- In 1989, the group released The White Tape, recorded in cassette form, followed by The Red Tape released in cassette form in 1991.
- In 1990, Donna The Buffalo made a huge leap in its live presence.  In learning that a friend of the band had been diagnosed with AIDS, the group created the Grass Roots Festival, as a benefit for AIDS research.  With growing popularity, the festival has grown into a four-day event and has featured big name acts that included 10,000 Maniacs, John Anderson, Patty Loveless, Los Lobos and Ralph Stanley.
- Though Donna The Buffalo still headlines the festival each year, Grassroots has grown into a life of its own, requiring its own staff to coordinate it.  2010 marks the Festival’s 20th year.
- With publicity from the Grassroots Festival and success from their two cassette releases, the band went into the studio in 1993 and made its CD debut with The Purple One.  The following year, they began touring for live shows, traveling the East Coast as far as North Carolina.
- As demand grew, the band began more extensive touring, venturing out to Colorado, Texas and as far as Italy.  They became regulars at annual events including The Leaf Fest and Merle Fest in North Carolina, Harvest Fest in Georgia, Magnolia Fest in Florida, Great Blue Heron in New York and Rhythm Roots Fest in Rhode Island.
- In 1998, the band worked with Sugar Hill Records and released Rockin’ In The Weary Land.  The band won the Association of Independent Music (AIM) award for Best Rock Album.
- This award generated interest in Donna The Buffalo and attracted a national touring company Monterey Peninsula Artists, who picked up the band in 2002.  This deal benefited the group immediately as they opened for The Dead in Alpine Valley that same year.  The following year, they supported the alternative country musician Jim Lauderdale on Wait Til Spring, which was released on Skycrunch Records.
- The album, Life’s A Ride, released in 2005 under Reincarnate Records marked many firsts for the group.
- The band's 2008 release Silverlined, on Sugar Hill Records, rose to #8 on the Americana Music Chart.
- With a 21 year career and an ever-evolving grass-roots sound, 100,000 records sold, 100’s of gigs a year and 15,000 attendees at the 2004 Grassroots Festival, this eclectic upstate New York band has become quite a success.  With a growing fan base, dubbed as “The Herd,” Donna The Buffalo shares something in their music that feels so good to them that words don’t suffice.

Discography
The White Tape (1989), The Red Tape (1991), The Purple One (1993), The Ones You Love (1996), Rockin’ In The Weary Land (1998), Positive Friction (2000), Live From The American Ballroom (2001), Wait Til Spring (2003), Life’s A Ride (2005), Silverlined (2008)

Awards and Recognitions
- Won an Association of Independent Music award in 1998
- Performed at Bonnaroo in 2002