Suzanne Thomas

American bluegrass and country musician, singer and songwriter, plays guitar, banjo autoharp and piano. She was born in Dayton, Ohio. In 1970, Suzanne Thomas was one of the founding members of the fine Dayton band, The Hotmud Family, while married to their fiddle player, Dave Edmundson. At the time, she was one of the few women musicians on the bluegrass festival circuit. Born in Dayton from Kentucky antecedents, she can sing, play guitar, banjo, fiddle, autoharp, mandolin, and piano. After the breakup of the Hotmud Family, Played lead guitar in the country-rock band Sagebrush and worked in a traditional duo with Carol Elizabeth Jones as the Kentucky Warblers, before becoming a member of the Dry Branch Fire Squad in 1990. In 1991, she married Gary Hopkins, who had been the bass player for Hotmud. After several CDs with the Dry Branch Fire Squad, she left in 1999 and is now based in Hillsboro, Ohio where in 2010 she was Executive Director of the Highland County Senior Center and was involved in contemporary Christian music. Thomas is also an accomplished songwriter and recorded an excellent solo effort on Rounder in 1998: Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts.