If you want lively entertainment, there's no better music than bluegrass, said Lee D Roy, rhythm guitarist with Greater Sudbury's Canucky Bluegrass Boys.
On Jan. 15 and 16, the band will perform at Grumbler's, 1620 Regent St., at 7:30 pm nightly. Tickets are $20 advance.
“When we play people will come up all the time and say they do enjoy it though they have never heard bluegrass performed live before,” Roy said. He has been playing bluegrass music since 1997.
Lead guitarist and vocalist Daryl Rodgers said once people experience the energy and speed of the music as it is played, they are hooked.
“That is what happened to me. I was at a music festival in Collingwood around 1997 and once I saw it I was hooked myself. Then I met Lee in Sudbury and he introduced me to it,” Rodgers said.
Rodgers, Roy, along with R.J. Nelson (banjo), Matt Naveau (stand up bass) and Don Reed (fiddle) make up the band that has traveled as far south as Gettysburg Pennsylvania and Nashville Tennessee for bluegrass musical events. Because Nelson is out of town, Marc Rivet, from Coniston, will play banjo instead for the Grumblers concerts.
“We have traveled to Gettysburg for five years running. People know us there and in Nashville,” Roy said.
Though Roy does not consider bluegrass music to be well known locally, there is one exception.
“Tony Deboer in River Valley puts on an annual bluegrass festival every year the last weekend of July into the first weekend of August. There is a stage and camping for people,” he added.
“Three to four thousand people come from all over Ontario and some of the northern United States. There are 10 to 15 bands, three to four top bluegrass bands from the United States. We have played there including last summer.”
Bob Bale, promoter of the event at Grumblers, said from his experience, bluegrass is becoming more popular.
“I found when I booked General Store, a bluegrass band from Brampton, for the last Out of The Cold concert series (at St. Andrews Place) this fall, I sold out of tickets a week before the event. I had to turn down 50 people,” Bale said.
Bale noted when he booked another bluegrass band, the Breakmen, from Vancouver for a show at Grumblers in the fall of 2008, for two nights, that show also sold out in advance.
Rodgers, 28, said younger people are attracted to the more contemporary versions of bluegrass.
“My influences are Bill Monroe and The Dillards. But newer groups like the Infamous Stringdusters, Steep Canyon Rangers and Cherry Holmes have different beats and fancier and faster playing styles. That attracts a new audience.”
Bale pointed out that Canucky Bluegrass Boys are themselves piling up awards.
“At the Central Canadian Bluegrass Awards held recently in Deerhurst near Huntsville, they won most promising group and best vocal group. They even edged out General Store for that award.” Bale said bands competed from all over the province for the awards.
A key player in the group is Don Reed, said Bale.
“At the recent benefit concert for Gary Gibson's grandson Don Reed was called up to perform the Orange Blossom Special. Musicians (in the audience) were asked to come up to play with Don. Immediately 10 local musicians jumped up just for the chance to play with him. Don got a standing ovation for his rendition of that song.”
Reed has been asked to perform at the CANO reunion concert at La Nuit sur l'étang, March 27 at the Fraser Auditorium. He will replace deceased original CANO violinist Wasyl Kohut. He has been employed as a session player for numerous country and western stars such as Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owen in Los Angeles and Nashville. He won the North American fiddle champion award three times.
Roy said his fellow band members are amazed they have Don Reed playing with them.
“Sometimes we just scratch our heads and wonder just how we have him in our band,” Roy said with a chuckle.
The band has their first CD out, Standin' Up, produced by Gary Gibson last summer at his house in Coniston. There is one original song, Standin' Up, and 10 covers, said Roy.
He said the theme of the album was about not backing down to life's challenges.
Songs from the CD will be performed along with requests from the audience at grumblers.
“We are often asked to do songs by the Good Brothers. We do their song Fox on the Run every so often.”
Tickets for the Grumblers show are advance only as seating is limited. Phone Bob Bale 523-6200.
Bale has also booked folk musician Ian Tamblyn to Grumblers for a show Sunday, Feb. 28 starting at 7 p.m.. Admission is $20 advance.
“Tickets are going fast for that show too. He has a new album out, Gyre, his 30th,” Bale noted.
Visit www.canuckybluegrass.com.
