Rum Drum Ramblers

As performances by the the legendary Rum Drum Ramblers are scarce, we always look forward to the Ramblers returning to the Focal Point!

The backward-glancing trio Rum Drum Ramblers are most commonly thought of as a blues band, and certainly, the guys in this group seek to revive a certain strand of acoustic, pre-war blues music. But after listening, one could argue that the Ramblers are a soul band; just listen for a few minutes to guitarist and singer Mat Wilson’s sweet, husky voice and feel the easy rhythm of the best early R&B singers. Or perhaps it’s best to describe it as a country act: there’s so much twang-bangin and swift-pickin’ in Ryan Koenig’s mandolin that Buck Owens would probably tip his ten-gallon hat to these fellows from the great beyond. But then, terming the Rum Drum Ramblers as country (or blues or soul) would ignore the jazzy underpinnings that Joey Glynn pumps out of his sonorous upright bass. Better yet to put genre tags aside and let the Ramblers interpretation of American folk idioms fan you like a St.Louis humid breeze.