Laurel Canyon Ramblers

Virtuosic instrumentation and ultra-smooth vocal harmonies have made the Laurel Canyon Ramblers one of the most successful groups performing tradition-rooted bluegrass. Led by banjo, guitar and dobro player and vocalist Herb Pederson, the Laurel Canyon Ramblers represent over one hundred years of bluegrass experience. The Laurel Canyon Ramblers, named after a street in Los Angeles that crosses Hollywood Boulevard, were brought together when Pederson returned to bluegrass in 1994. The son of a policeman who was born in 1944 and raised in Berkeley, California, Pederson had filled in for an ailing Earl Scruggs in the mid-1960s and had replaced influential banjo Doug Dillard in the Dillards in 1968. Since leaving the Dillards in 1971, Pederson had recorded three solo albums, been a founding member of Country Gazette, and played on recordings by such artists as Linda Ronstadt, John Denver, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Diana Ross, Nicolette Larson, Gordon Lightfoot, Stephen Stills, John Prine, Johnny Rivers, Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne and Dan Fogelberg. Together with Chris Hillman (the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers), Pederson had recorded six albums with California country-rock band, Desert Rose, and a duo tribute album to the early-'60s sounds of Buck Owens-style country music, Bakersfield Bound, in 1996. In addition to writing such standard bluegrass tunes as "Old Train" and "Wait A Minute," Pederson contributed to the soundtracks of films and television shows including Smokey & The Bandit, City Slickers, Maverick, The Fire Down Below, The A Team, The Rockford Files and The Dukes of Hazzard. The remaining members of the Laurel Canyon Ramblers have resumes nearly as impressive. Mandolin player and vocalist Kenny Blackwell, who studied with the late Jethro Burns,...