Fanshawe College welcomed Toronto bluegrass and folk band The Slocan Ramblers for an hour long lunch time set.
They’re made up of banjo player Frank Evans, upright bassist Alastair Whitehead, guitarist Darryl Poulsen, (all three of them also sang) and mandolin player Adrian Gross who was absent. Evans explained how he got into the genre.
“I got into the banjo when I was about nine or ten… the sound of it struck my ear and I sort of followed it. There’s actually a great bluegrass and old time scene in Toronto which a lot of people don’t know about, so I found a teacher who was sort of a pillar of that scene at the time.”
He added that his teacher took him to places like West Virginia so he could learn about the origins of his music.
According to Alastair Whitehead, the band started out with more traditional bluegrass music before they began writing original material and expanding their boundaries. He describes it as roots-based folk music.
Darryl Poulsen said the band originally got together to play a single gig in Toronto, but that one show got them enough exposure to warrant two CDs and regular tour dates.
You can find tour dates and more at slocanramblers.com
