Steep Canyon Rangers L-R Charles Humphrey III, Mike Guggino, Woody Platt, Nicky Sanders and Graham Sharp

By Rickey Lamb and Dan Tackett

Once upon a time, this group of college buddies formed a little bluegrass band. Seven years later, the Steep Canyon Rangers are still buddies — and still performing their own signature style of bluegrass.

“We really try to keep things pretty traditional sounding,” Rangers mandolin player Mike Guggino said while hawking CDs after a recent performance at Uncle Pen Days in Bean Blossom, Ind.

The Uncle Pen Days crowd, like a lot of Bean Blossom festival crowds, leans pretty much to the traditional side of things. In that respect, the Rangers found themselves in friendly territory. But this band’s trick is putting a fresh sound on a big platter of original tunes that really come out sounding like … well, like they were from the Bluegrass Big Note Songbook your daddy used.

“We just try to be original. We try to have our own band,” Guggino said, giving lots of credit to banjo picker and bandmate Graham Sharp, who writes or co-writes songs for the Rangers.

The band began performing on the regional level around North Carolina when most of its members were in college in Chapel Hill, N.C. They’ve been touring on the national festival circuit for the past four years, about the same time fiddle whiz Nicky Sanders joined the band.

Steep Canyon Ranger’s Fiddle Player Nicky Sanders photo by Rickey Lamb

Sanders was not used to playing fiddle when he joined the band. While being classically trained on violin at Berklee school of music in Boston, his background was filled with the likes of Mozart and Bach. “It was a whole new learning experience to downplay the vibrato I had learned and work on the tone and technique of great fiddlers,” Sanders stated, “I wished I had started my fiddle playing years earlier.”

One of Sander’s inspiration, in the world of great fiddle, was the enormously talented, Vassar Clements. Sanders felt there was nobody that played quite like the late fiddler. “He had a unique sound and was extremely innovative,” Sanders acknowledged.

Sanders talked about how the older bluegrass bands wrote their own songs. Many of those songs have become standards in the bluegrass world. The Steep Canyon Rangers mentality is a return to writing and performing their own material, much like Bill Monroe, Jimmy Martin, and the rest of the classic Bluegrass people have done.

“Del McCoury and his band are a big inspiration to our sound,” Sanders touted prior to the evening show. It was quite evident by the way they worked the single mike, especially on an accapella gospel number, they did for the evening set.

The afternoon set the Rangers performed was a breath of fresh air, full of energy and definitely a fine performance. The evening show was filled with an even stronger sense of vitality. The songs off the new CD, Lovin’ Pretty Women, performed during both sets were very strong and had a great, characteristic sound.

The band’s latest CD is its third for Rebel Records. Produced by Ronnie Bowman, it’s been getting rave reviews as has the band itself with its high-energy shows.

Guggino said the group stays busy during the summer festival season, but tries to reach out to non-bluegrass crowds during the off season.

“We play a lot of clubs and theaters that aren’t used to getting a lot of bluegrass bands,” he said. “It’s a neat thing. We often bring bluegrass to people of all ages for the first time.”

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“Lovin’ Pretty Women”
Steep Canyon Rangers

“Lovin’ Pretty Women”, the Steep Canyon Rangers’ fourth release, reveals a dynamic cohesive outfit, steeped in tradition and ready to set the bluegrass world on fire. With one foot squarely planted in tradition and the other dabbling in the nuances of new grass, the band puts forth a sonic landscape that will be instantly familiar and comfortable to the die-hard traditionalists, yet as fresh and new as anything you’ve heard.

The group’s banjo picker, Graham Sharp, had a hand in writing eight of the 12 cuts on the project and may very well be the Steep Canyon Ranger’s ace in the hole.

To the uninitiated, a top to bottom listen will leave the listener wondering if Monroe or some other luminary of the genre originally released these songs years ago. Sharp has a real gift for penning tunes that sound like instant classics.

The instrumental work on the disc showcases a group of musicians who’ve honed their craft from years of playing together on the road.

The tight interplay of Nicky Sanders (fiddle), Mike Guggino (mandolin) and Graham Sharp show a well seasoned and confident mentality… never over playing but continuously dancing around the vocal and playing perfectly to each song.

Charles Humphrey III’s bass lines are solid and in the pocket pushing and pulling the beat as needed.

Woody Platt’s vocals are a big part of this band and its instantly memorable sound. Platt has a vocal quality that brings a real honesty to the material. Never sounding contrived and forced, Platt is as at ease singing the title track, pondering the thoughts of a life chasin’ those pretty women as he is singing the starkly contrasting and somber “Be Still Moses.”

The title cut, “Lovin’ Pretty Women,” could have been a banjo/fiddle hoe-down, played in some cleared-out barn on a Saturday night at the turn of the century. Yet the feel of the tune still fits well with some of the contemporary grass being tossed around these days.

If “Lovin’ Pretty Women” is sign of things yet to come from the Steep Canyon Ranger’s, bluegrass as a genre is in more than capable hands with this next generation group. This record should put the Steep Canyon Rangers in the spotlight of the bluegrass community at large.

Top to bottom there isn’t a filler song on the project and I’d venture to say that the cutting room floor probably ended up with a couple of gems that didn’t make the record.

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