Home on the Range: Steep Canyon Rangers at Bluestem

Grammy awarding-winning bluegrass crew Steep Canyon Rangers will perform in Fargo-Moorhead for the first time this Saturday, Sept. 6 for the very first Roots on the Red festival at Bluestem.

The North Carolina-based outfit are known for their rich, gospel-sounding vocal harmonies, aggrandized acoustic instrumentation and traditional country music roots. The group is also known as the backing band for celebrated comedian Steve Martin. Thanks to the Steep Canyon Rangers, most of us Midwesterners were introduced to Martin’s unexpected banjo playing gifts at We Fest in 2012.

Though the Steep Canyon Rangers will not have Martin joining them in Moorhead, festival goers can still expect an incredible show. Their musicianship is quite unprecedented. Be sure to check out their Grammy-winning album “Nobody Knows You,” or their latest “Tell The Ones I Love,” recorded at Levon Helm’s studio in Woodstock, N.Y.

We spoke with mandolin player/vocalist Mike Guggino to learn more about the Rangers’ “roots.”

HPR: We of course have to ask what it’s like to work with celebrity comedian Steve Martin?

Mike Guggino: Steve is a great guy, a great musician. Obviously he’s a genius comedian. He’s a constant professional; he’s got a great work ethic. He loves to practice and really work on the show and it’s been a great experience to work with him in a lot of ways.

HPR: In what ways did adding Steve Martin to the Steep Canyon Rangers change how your band works?

MG: We got to play some really big shows with him and it really helped us with our confidence in playing big shows in front of big audiences, feeling comfortable doing that and just how to like put on a good show and really think about our shows. He’s really good at putting a show together and thinking about how to interact with the audience and how to keep a show interesting and flowing. I think that’s affected our show too.

We also took all our comedy and any kind of stage humor out of our show because we realized we were not funny. We should just stick to the music. We’re better off doing that.

HPR: Bluegrass is a very aged genre of music and yet it still keeps getting passed on to younger generations who keep it alive and keep it traditional. Why do you think this is?

MG: I think people appreciate the acoustic nature of it. They appreciate the fact that you can watch people play it on stage and then you can go out to the parking lot in the campgrounds and find people playing good folk music. It’s all passed down by ear and people share tunes and teach other tunes. People love the vocals and the clean picking, the energy of bluegrass and the high pitched traditional tunes.

HPR: How do you grow and stay original while playing a genre of music that is so very rooted in tradition and foundational simplicity?

MG: It’s always a tough balance. You want to stay true to your roots and have respect for the old style and the traditional style. I think we’ve always had our own style because we’ve always written our own music and played our own songs. We’ve always had our own bluegrass style from the beginning. I think as our careers have moved on we’ve gone from a traditional sound, which we started with, to a little bit more progressive sound.

This last record (“Tell the Ones I Love”) we recorded at Levon Helm’s studio in Woodstock, N.Y. and we worked with Larry Campbell, who was Levon’s bandleader and Dob Dylan’s band leader for years. He’s a rock guy but also a folk guy who plays bluegrass instruments. We incorporated drums for the first time on our record and we actually have a drummer in the band. Our sound has definitely changed from record to record and I’m sure this next record will sound even more different.

Throughout we’ve maintained an acoustic quality and traditional bluegrass instrumentation and a lot of the singing style and harmony style and arrangements are definitely bluegrass, and so it’s cool there’s a fine line. Some people love the progressive change in sound and the more traditional audience might not like it as much but we’re just more focused on playing music we like and writing songs that we like to play rather than thinking about, “Is this gonna make somebody mad or is somebody going to like this even more?”

IF YOU GO:

Roots on the Red

Sat & Sun, Sept 6 & 7

Bluestem, 801 50th Ave SW, Moorhead

rootsonthered.com