The Alum Ridge Boys & Ashlee
The Alum Ridge Boys & Ashlee play music the way it sounded before bluegrass, old-time, and country went their separate ways. Rooted in the Blue Ridge music traditions of Southwest Virginia, the band draws from the fertile gray area of the 1940s and early 1950s — a transitional period where traditional and modern styles mingled freely, musicians who had grown up on old-time music at local fiddlers conventions were eager to try new things, and bands attempted to imitate new sounds they heard on radio and records. The Alum Ridge Boys & Ashlee’s sound is earthy, direct, and unadorned: five masterful musicians and singers delivering stirring harmonies and hard-driving instrumental work with no modern gloss and no apology, alongside a handful of original compositions that sit seamlessly in the tradition — an approach described by Bluegrass Unlimited as sounding like “a lost volume from Rounder’s Early Days of Bluegrass series.” Their recordings Live at WPAQ and Live at WPAQ II were captured in single takes around a single vintage RCA ribbon mic, standing in a circle, exactly as much of this music would have been recorded nearly eight decades ago.