Steep Canyon Rangers

continued

Oakland Community College puts on a winter bluegrass series in a cafeteria at its Highland Lakes campus, and I saw the Steep Canyon Rangers perform there last year. It's a pretty sedate crowd, composed of the folks who spend summers lumbering from one bluegrass festival to another in their RVs and settle into short-legged lawn chairs when they get there. But there was a heightened level of attention in the air for these original-minded traditionalists. With the Duhks and the Infamous Stringdusters, both fine contemporary groups on the edge of bluegrass, coming to the Ark in July, I hope folks will turn out there on Wednesday, July 23, for some young North Carolinians who are finding plenty of space for themselves in the music's traditional forms.

[Review published July 2008]