Caden Knudson is a western folk songwriter and fingerstyle guitar picker hailing from Maple Ridge, BC. Caden has been performing throughout the lower mainland for over 10 years, playing weekly summer shows at Folk Fests, Farmers Markets, community events, and breweries anywhere from Victoria to Penticton and everywhere in between. Performance highlights include the Mission Folk Festival, Victoria Buskers Festival, Burnaby Blooms Festival, Woodstove Festival, and Music on the Wharf. His major influences range from western guitar styling to radical folk activists including Townes Van Zandt, Doc Watson, John Prine, and Woody Guthrie to name a few. Caden’s also been involved in a variety of community events and festivals as a performer, talent booker, MC, and sound tech. He co-hosted and ran sound for Kanaka Creek Open Mic from 2010-2020 with host Pam Burns. This open mic has spawned the cafe music scene in Maple Ridge creating a network of musicians of all skills levels to collaborate and seek new venues. Caden organized a fundraiser CD consisting of 13 tracks performed by over 20 local artists collaboratively to raise money for sound equipment and offer all the artists a professionally recorded track and exposure to the local music scene. In addition to performing solo, Caden performs as half of the duo “Knudson and Connaughton” a two-piece acoustic folk band performing original songs written by Caden Knudson about life and loneliness in the Fraser Valley. Their first EP titled “Professional Men of Music” was released in 2018. The band has performed at festivals from the interior to the island including the Mission Folk Festival, the Victoria Buskers Festival, Art Yeah in Maple Ridge, and Woodstove Festival in Cumberland. Tom Harrison’s review of the Caden’s first EP (Professional Men of Music) notes: “Knudson impresses as more confident on the EP, Professional Men of Music. That title alone indicates the humor that is part of the duo’s foundation. Knudson’s lyrics reveal wit and fluency. Take Me Home has a kind of blue-collar poetry that is wonderful while Get In Line is both wisely observant and funny.” Caden’s songs are a blend of thought-provoking lyrics combined with easy listening guitar picking. Songs about life and loneliness in the Fraser Valley, as well as dancing spiders.