About

If interested in booking us, please call us at 336-200-0404 or
e-mail us at crookedroadramblers@gmail.com.

Biography

The Crooked Road Ramblers are an old-time band from the Blue Ridge Mountains, steeped in the traditional music of the area. You can find them providing a mixture of instrumental dance music, old ballads, traditional country, and bluegrass at notable venues across the region like the Carter Family Fold, Houstonfest, the Albert Hash Memorial Festival, and the Wayne Henderson Festival.

68619311_881635325552180_5598332116187217920_n The band was started in 2002 by fiddler Kilby Spencer, originally from Whitetop, Virginia. Kilby has been playing old-time music most of his life, learning from his parents, Thornton and Emily, who revived the Whitetop Mountain Band in 1975. He also counts local fiddlers Johnny Miller and Dean Sturgill amongst his influences, in addition to recordings of Albert Hash, Otis Burris, and G.B. Grayson. Kilby has collected and digitized rare local recordings for many years and serves on the board of the Field Recorders Collective, whose mission is to preserve and release rare field and home recordings. He started the band in hopes of carrying on the regional big band sound that makes people want to dance.

kelley for siteKelley Breiding of Crumpler, NC propels the band forward with her clawhammer banjo playing and high-powered vocals. Kelley has won many blue ribbons for her banjo playing and also leads her own traditional country music group, Kelley and the Cowboys.

66597678_2477525818970268_2435685247870828544_n John Perry plays guitar and also sings. John is a retired welder from Independence,VA and grew up playing with his brothers, Buck (banjo) and Arnold (guitar), in a band called The New River Ramblers (which featured fiddlers such as Jerry Moretz,Thornton Spencer and James Burris). They were frequent prize winners and favorites of dancers throughout the region for most of the 1970s until they disbanded in the late 1980s. John’s individualistic guitar style gives the band much of its unique driving sound. John is also a wonderful singer who has that “high lonesome” sound. His father played clawhammer banjo and also sang.

If interested in booking us, please call us at 336-200-0404 or
e-mail us at crookedroadramblers@gmail.com.

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