Red Clay Ramblers Play City Winery, 6/25
By: Gabrielle Sierra Jun. 16, 2010
Next week, the Tony Award-winning acclaimed string band, The Red Clay Ramblers, will make a rare New York appearance at City Winery on Friday, June 25. Now in their 38th year, The Red Clay Ramblers are a North Carolina string band whose repertoire reflects their roots in old-time mountain music, as well as country, rock, New Orleans, bluegrass, gospel, and the American musical. City Winery is located at 155 Varick Street www.CityWinery.com The City Winery concert will feature selections from their new North Carolina-focused CD, Old North State as well as well as songs from their three-time Broadway hit, Fool Moon.
The members of The Red Clay Ramblers include Jack Herrick (bass, trumpet, bouzouki, pennywhistle), Bland Simpson (piano), Clay Buckner (fiddle), Chris Frank (guitar, accordion, tuba), Rick Good (banjo) and Rob Ladd (drums).
In 1993, the Bill Irwin-David Shiner-Ramblers hit Fool Moon on Broadway earned The Ramblers their second Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Music in a Play. They then returned to Broadway with Fool Moon for a second success in late 1995, and had a third Broadway run November, 1998-January 1999, which won a Special Tony Award.
The Ramblers' long association with music and theater also includes the original New York productions of Diamond Studs (1975)and Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind (1985-86). The Red Clay Ramblers scored MR. Shepard's film Far North, and they perform and appear in his second feature, Silent Tongue. They have toured extensively in North America and in Europe, and have made four USIA concert tours, to eastern Europe, sub-Sahara Africa, North Africa and the Middle East. The Ramblers developEd Kudzu: A Southern Musical, in collaboration with Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Doug Marlette, and staged the show at Duke in Durham, NC and Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC.
Over the years, the Ramblers have performed with such figures as '98 Grammy-winner Shawn Colvin (a Red Clay Rambler for most of '87), Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, Eugene Chadbourn, Ireland's Boys of the Lough, Randy Newman (recorded "Ride, Gambler, Ride" with him for the film Maverick), and Michele Shocked (who brought the Eagles' Bernie Leadon and a mobile studio to North Carolina to record with The Ramblers). The Ramblers scored Nick Searcy's Paradise Falls [Best Feature, Hollywood Film Festival, Aug. '98], and all band members have been involved separately in projects such as children's works for St. Louis Rep and the celebratory Carolina musicals King Mackerel, Cool Spring, and Tar Heel Voices.
The Ramblers' musical Lone Star Love: the Merry Wives of Windsor, Texas ran at the Ohio Theater, Cleveland (Fall, 2001). Their album Yonder was released August '01, and The Ramblers made a national radio appearance on Mountain Stage" (NPR) in 2002. They premiered Ramblin' Suite with the Atlanta Ballet (Fall '02, choreography by Diane Coburn-Bruning); toured Rambleshoe nationally with Dayton's Rhythm in Shoes (Spring '03, Spring '04); and released on CD the scores to both Rambleshoe and Kudzu.
The Ramblers' '04-'05 Off Broadway Lone Star Love earned Outstanding Musical nominations from both the Lucille Lortel Awards and the NY Outer Critics' Circle, and the Original Cast Recording of the show was released January 2006 by PS Classics of New York. Their recording Fool Moon, the Music was released September 2007. They premiered their ballet Carolina Jamboree with the Carolina Ballet (Raleigh, NC) in February 2005 (choreography by Lynne Taylor-Corbett; reprised June 2008), with numerous UNC Public TV statewide broadcasts. They premiered their work The Old North State Ramble along with other Rambler favorites in concert with the North Carolina Symphony (Meymandi Hall, Raleigh, NC) on New Year's Eve, 2007, with a reprise in Regency Park, Cary, June 2009. The Red Clay Ramblers released their North Carolina-focused CD, Old North State October 16th, 2009.
The Red Clay Ramblers perform at City Winery Friday, June 25. Seating begins at 5:00pm and the show begins at 7:00pm. City Winery is located at 155 Varick Street. Ticket prices are Bar Stools $18, Reserved Tables $22, Reserved Best Tables $25 and VIP Tables $25. To order tickets, go to www.CityWinery.com
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