Bluegrass was born in Appalachia shortly after the Second World War.
Now, the traditional roots genre is finally having its own cultural moment.
Regina’s The Dead South recently passed 100 million views on YouTube for their single “In Hell I’ll Be In Good Company” and other artists in the bluegrass genre are seeing their fanbase grow rapidly.
Toronto’s Slocan Ramblers have been fixtures of the bluegrass scene for eight years and will be in Moose Jaw at the Mae Wilson Theatre on Thursday, Mar. 7 at 7:30 p.m.
“It seems to have kind of taken off in the last five years and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down,” said bassist Alastair Whitehead from the Slocan Ramblers. “It seems to be getting a pretty wide appeal. When we travel, particularly certain places in the States where we go to festivals, it’s all young kids. It definitely seem to be gaining in popularity and there are a lot of bands that are getting mainstream success. I think it is having a bit of a moment.”
In addition to Whitehead, the Slocan Ramblers are an acoustic four-piece that also feature Frank Evans (banjo), Adrian Gross (mandolin) and Darryl Poulsen (guitar). Whitehead, who is from Newfoundland, Gross and Poulsen met at Humber College in Toronto where they were studying jazz. Whitehead and Evans worked together at a bike shop when Whitehead discovered Evans played the banjo.
“I think we each came to it in different ways,” Whitehead said. “What really kind of brought us together was that there was a really strong bluegrass scene in Toronto. At that point in time it was centered around a weekly gig at the Silver Dollar Room with a band called Crazy Strings. It was a late gig, but it was a lot of fun with a really, really great band that played every Wednesday. A lot of us used to go there and we noticed that we were becoming regulars there and got to talking and that led to jamming. We got a weekly gig and it snowballed from there.”
Now, the Slocans tour most of the year – they were in the UK and Ireland for 20 dates in the late fall and will play 28 shows on their Western Canadian tour – and are seeing the changing popularity of bluegrass first-hand.
“It depends where you go. Some regions we play, it tends to be an older crowd that have been around the music for a long time,” Whitehead said. “Other places we go there has been a whole movement of younger people who seem to have really taken to the music and are super-enthusiastic about it and coming out and discovering it for the first time. It’s cool to see it have this resurgence.”
It has been a good year for the Slocan Ramblers. They released Queen City Jubilee in the spring and earned a Juno Award nomination for Traditional Roots Album of the Year for the album.
“I don’t know if any of us really expected it. It was a really nice surprise,” Whitehead said. “When you tour so much and make your living playing music there’s a tendency to put your head down and with touring and playing shows there’s a lot to do. It’s nice to reflect on that. It’s a great little nod and a little bit of encouragement.”
The band is between albums and working on writing new songs. Whitehead said their sound continues to evolve, but they are still rooted in the traditional sound and style that drew them to bluegrass music in the first place.
“Over the years I think we’ve shifted, we’ve all started to write more of our own music. We’ve gotten more a little more comfortable bringing elements of other music that we listen to into our music,” Whitehead said. “A lot of people seem to think the band blends a lot of the old school traditional stuff with some more modern elements, while still staying true to that raw energy of the older recordings.”
