The word that best describes the bluegrass- and folk-inspired musical duo of Bailey Mae Gardener and Miguel Samuel de Bragança, known together as their group name Wolftrap, is “harmony.”
Harmony is the throughline of their partnership, one of the core values they live by, and the blend of their voices as they sing. And Wolftrap began on the Island. Gardener and Bragança first met in the sand-swept parking lot of the Mermaid Farm & Dairy stand in Chilmark, and soon, they’re coming out with an album named after that meeting place, called “Mermaid Farm Blues.” Their music is an homage to their home, their perspectives of the world, and their life together. The duo got married last fall.
“One of the joys of having a sustained musical relationship with somebody,” Bragança said, is that you “learn how to communicate in ways that reach each other.”
Wolftrap’s original songs toe a careful line between music that is enjoyable to listen to and lyrics that pack a meaningful message. They workshopped their band name the same way they write their songs: by communicating with each other. Plus, it pays homage to a tattoo of a wolf that Gardener has. The harmonies they wind together are an amiable backdrop for some of the more difficult themes they tackle, such as federal immigration enforcement tactics, systemic and governmental issues, and a rise in AI usage — topics similar to ones folk musicians have broached for many years, but with a modern twist.
“Music, for me, has helped me process the crazy world that we live in,” Bragança said. He described creativity as a way of sitting with discomfort and uncertainty: “If I can ground myself in music, I can be a better family member, community member, and human being.”
The pair were married at the Captain Flanders House last fall, and moved back to the Island full-time shortly after. Their relationship blossomed by the crashing waves of local beaches and the bright flower stands at Island farms, and to the sound of their shared music. They met in 2020, when Bragança was looking for another vocalist for his band on Martha’s Vineyard, and he reached out to Gardener over text after their mutual friend John Stanwood suggested they meet.
They met in-person after that initial connection on a whim,, when Bragança rode his motorcycle into the Mermaid Farm & Dairy stand parking lot where Gardener was the head cheesemaker. With starry eyes and musical collaboration in sight, the pair met up to sing a cover, called “Life Crisis” by River Whyles, and it was more than their voices that clicked.
“We just couldn’t stop laughing,” Gardener, 33, said. “Neither of us were looking for romance. It was this puzzle piece that just [fit],” she added as she motioned the making of a puzzle with her hands.
“I’ve described it before as I could feel the universe yawning,” Bragança, 40, said. “It was a very cosmic feeling.”
The pair continued playing together, started dating, and eventually both enrolled in an online songwriting course called the “School of Song.” It was through this course that they made connections in Los Angeles, and in 2022, they decided to move there together and pursue music more seriously. In L.A, the duo worked with musicians who were developing their style and sound.
Both Bragança and Gardener grew up surrounded by folk and bluegrass. They were raised in musical families who have been coming to these sandy shores for decades.
“Music has always been a part of my family and my history,” Gardener said in an interview. She said they called their home up-Island “Camp Sheldon,” which is her family’s last name (Gardener is a stage name).
It was a place where extended and immediate family would convene in the warmer months, and was the “heartbeat,” she said, of their time on the Vineyard. Gardener’s grandmother went to college with Trudy Taylor (mother of James, Kate, and Livingston), and they moved here in tandem. She described the families as “intertwined,” both socially and musically.
At that home, instruments were not long unattended. She described the summer: art supplies strewn on the front porch; one person playing guitar nearby; a singing voice drifting from the outdoor shower. Gardener’s even voice and lilting notes were formed in the energy of that place, and molded further through collaboration with other artists.
Bragança’s family life was similarly music-driven. He was raised with the sounds of ’60s musical icons like the Beatles and Bob Dylan, and styles he became obsessed with, like jug bands, which are a bluegrass/folk/jazz blend with washboards, spoons, and empty jugs as horn instruments. One of his favorites was Jim Kweskin, an iconic jug band leader in the 1960s who has deep Vineyard ties as well.
Bragança said he would listen to his favorite artists on cassette tapes from an old-school receiver when he was a child. If he heard something he liked, he would climb to the top of the shelf, where the receiver was, record it, and create mixtapes. He started playing the guitar when he was 12 years old, and “got the bug” for playing often and in community.
His first musical collaboration was working on a record with the photographer and music producer Peter Simon. That led him to opening for artists like Livingston Taylor and Tom Rush. He even collaborated with his early idol, Jim Kweskin. He attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, and played in a jug band during those years called the Mission Hill Hog Stompers.
In the city, Bragança worked at a recording studio and started performing at art and music shows. He and his friends began a collective called Yes.Oui.Si, which was a multimedia project in a commercial space in downtown Boston, where he invited Island musicians like Nina Violet and Willy Mason to perform. The project needed someone to learn how to grow the small business, and Bragança decided to take it on.
“At that point, I kind of stopped playing music,” he said. He devoted his time instead to art dealing, concert promoting, and the business side of his longtime passion. After four years at the art collective, he got a job at a marketing agency, where he worked for the next seven years. It was only at dinner parties that his guitar and bluesy voice would make an appearance.
Then, in 2019, he was mountaineering in the French Alps, and in the white-capped landscape, he said he “almost died” in a solo skiing accident. He reflected on the moment, and said it spurred him to consider his life and mortality in a totally new way. He came to the realization that his biggest regret if he hadn’t made it off that mountain “would’ve been not developing musicianship into what I always believed it could become.”
So he moved back to the Island, centered music, and started gigging again at local bars like the Ritz and the Loft. It wasn’t long after that he rode his motorcycle up Middle Road in Chilmark to get a yogurt lassi, and met his future partner in life and work.
Now, the pair are readying for a show at the Tabernacle in Oak Bluffs on August 15, where Wolftrap will open for the Wallflowers, a rock band headed up by Jakob Dylan, son of Bob Dylan.
While they spend much of their time playing music, they also are enmeshed in Island life. Bragança works a few days a week at the Ruel Gallery in Menemsha, and plays frequently with local groups like the Dock Dance Band. Gardener, appropriately, gardens. She also caters, is a session musician with L.A. artists, and is a yoga teacher on the side. They’re gearing up for their record release of “Mermaid Farm Blues.”
“At the end of the day, we’re here because we love playing music. We try to be …” Gardener said as she looked toward her partner. “Who we are,” Bragança finished.
Sarah Shaw Dawson is a reporter at the Martha’s Vineyard Times and a musician. She played with Miguel Samuel de Bragança and Bailey Mae Gardener at a show this summer.
