Jenny has been described as "one of the most influential dulcimer players in England today". She has played hammered dulcimer in an assortment of English dance bands for over 30 years, and is widely admired for her formidable technique, which enables her to negotiate the trickiest tunes – her playing was described in The Living Tradition as "electrifying". As well as Rising Sun Band, Jenny works solo and in the duo Bellowed & Hammered with Northumbrian piper Adrian Schofield; she has a long record in teaching, workshops and organisation and is a familiar and respected figure on the English traditional session scene. As a soloist she has an increasing international profile, with appearances in the USA and Ireland, as well as at several Cimbalom World Association Congresses in Europe. Jenny has contributed to albums by a variety of artists, and composed pieces in traditional style that have been covered by top-line musicians such as Belshazzar's Feast. She is an experienced dancer, both social and clog-step; finding the right tune and the right pace to fit the caller's choice of dance is Jenny's department.

John has an eclectic musical background that adds a certain manic energy to his fiddle playing. Playing bass guitar in the late 1970s for a punk-rock band that only narrowly escaped fame and success, spending several years in anarchic local legends The Mossley Dukes, and continuing to this day to experiment in cutting-edge electric roots collaborations, John is nonetheless as committed as his fellow band members to traditional music. These days he spends much of his time in County Clare, where he's deeply involved in the session scene, and he also guests regularly for other dance bands in the North West. A jagged, sawing fiddle style has always been John's trademark, but more recently he's added mandolin and tenor banjo to his armoury, giving Rising Sun Band another layer of textures.

Brian has been a professional musician for twenty years and is well-known as a solo artist on the British folk circuit and abroad, with seven solo albums to his credit and festival appearances in the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Although best known in that context as a melodeon and concertina player and singer of traditional songs, Brian is also a formidable acoustic guitarist who favours open tunings and whose role in Rising Sun Band is to lay down a crunching rhythm: the respected caller and musician Pete Coe once compared his contribution to RSB with that of Lemmy to Motorhead! As a squeezebox player and prolific composer of dance tunes – his book Rattle And Roll has brought his compositions into the repertoires of many dance musicians – Brian knows the music from a front-line perspective, and is well placed as a guitarist to understand both how to drive the rhythm and provide inventive chord sequences.

Paul is a versatile squeezebox player with the unusual accomplishment of mastering both the English and Anglo system of concertina (about as different technically as fiddle and bagpipes!) as well as melodeon. He's an experienced musician both with Rising Sun Band, in which he plays mainly English concertina, with other local bands, and with Saddleworth Morris Men. Paul has a reputation for expressive and sensitive playing, but also for drive and rhythm acquired through years of dancing. A misspent youth listening to rock 'n roll and reggae gives a modern snap to his delivery of traditional tunes. Paul is regularly booked as concertina tutor at events such as the Swaledale Squeeze, and has appeared at Plzen and Raalte International Folklore Festival. He recently published a book, Trip to Friezland, containing a variety of North West English dance tunes including several of his own compositions.