With the release of their second CD, Livin’ Reeltime, Thinkin’ Old-Time, the Reeltime Travelers are taking their music to new destinations and getting a lot of attention along the way. The Reeltime Travelers play Old-Time Reeltime Americana music, rooted in the pre-record string bands of Southern Appalachia and drawing from that deep tradition to create new songs and sounds. Their shows are high-energy mixes of traditional, fiddle-driven dance tunes, mountain harmonies, original banjo and fiddle tunes, and new songs with ties to the Old-Time tradition.
The band formed three years ago when four folks crossed paths in historical country music town, Johnson City, Tennessee, the site of the Ralph Stanley’s first recording with the Stanley Brothers, and today’s Bluegrass and Country Music Program at East Tennessee State University. Singer/songwriter guitarist Martha Scanlan and mandolinist Thomas Sneed moved to the heart of Appalachia from West of the Mississippi after hearing about the region’s music while playing bluegrass in Europe. Fiddler and dancer Heidi Andrade came to the region from California with her husband, banjoist Roy Andrade, a native of Asheville, North Carolina. In the winter of 2002 Bristol, Tennessee native and bassist Brandon Story joined the band. Even before the Reeltime Travelers played together, each had a love for mountain music and a passion to learn the stories behind it. They continue to do fieldwork, interviewing old musicians, uncovering forgotten tunes, and in their shows and children’s workshops, passing along the traditions they’ve collected.
The second half of 2002 finds the Travelers busier than ever, playing Bill Monroe’s Bean Blossom Festival, the Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival, the High Sierra Music Festival, and the Northern Rockies Folk Festival. The International Bluegrass Music Association has chosen the Reeltime Travelers as a 2002 Showcase band. Two of Martha Scanlan’s original songs were recently selected as finalists in the prestigious Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at Merlefest. Judges including Gillian Welch and Jim Lauderdale awarded Little Bird of Heaven first place in the bluegrass category and Hallelujah second place in the country category. Both songs are on the Traveler’s new record, Livin’ Reeltime, Thinkin’ Old-Time, which was produced by Grammy nominated Bob Carlin, known for his banjo work in the John Hartford String Band.
When time permits, the Reeltime Travelers also play with National Heritage Award-winning fiddler Ralph Blizard, Ed Snodderly, singer/songwriter and Soggy Bottom Boy in the film Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, and Old-Time Music guru John Herrmann, whose independent label Yodel-Ay-Hee has released the band’s first two records.
The Reeltime Travelers bring five individual voices together to mine a common well of American roots music. Traveling the country, keeping old tunes alive and expanding the canon of Old-time songs, the Reeltime Travelers show a reverence for tradition while creating their own Old-Time Reeltime Americana music.
HEIDI ANDRADE - Fiddle and Vocals
With an MA in music education and a love for traditional music, Heidi is known for her high energy fiddling and dancing. She comes from a family of fiddlers and has been performing for over twenty years. She was a member of the northern California based Round Valley Hogcallers from 1982 until 1996, and has performed at numerous old-time and bluegrass festivals from coast to coast. Having relocated to southern Appalachia in 1996 to absorb the musical traditions there, Heidi strives to communicate those traditions to children through her teaching.
MARTHA SCANLAN - Guitar and Vocals
Having the good fortune of growing up in a family that cherishes music, Martha was raised with music as an interwoven component of life, inseperable from the things in life that the heart loves most. Perhaps that is why her music feels right at home in the hills of East Tennessee, with its rich musical heritage so entwined in the landscape and hearts of it’s people. Her soulful distinctive voice rings with a timeless authenticity and her original songs seem to spring from the same well as the old recordings she listens to. She drives the rhythm in the Reeltime Travelers with an old guitar that accompanies her on the streets of Europe and festival stages across the country.
BRANDON STORY - Bass and Vocals
Brandon comes from a divided home. His Mom is a Beatles person and his Dad is an Elvis person. The son of a church organist and a bass player, Brandon picked up his Dad’s bass at about 14, got a six string guitar for high school graduation, and has been playing something, somewhere ever since. After doing community theater with his sisters as a teenager, he started writing songs and playing in bands in college. In graduate school at East Tennessee State University, he started playing bluegrass and started the Jelly Roll String Band, a hybrid acoustic-electric roots band. When not playing, Brandon teaches English and guitar lessons.
THOMAS SNEED - Mandolin and Vocals
Thomas comes from a musical family in Oklahoma. The first mandolin he ever saw was his grandmother’s round-back “taterbug” mandolin that rested atop the family piano. His early fascination with the mandolin mixed with the folk songs he learned at summer camps in the Ozark Mountains. By the time he started attending folk and bluegrass festivals in his teens, a passionate love of traditional American music developed that continues today. Thomas has traveled the world sharing stories and insights on music and its role in our lives. Whether playing for young children or archiving the oral histories of musical pioneers, Thomas has an enthusiasm that is contagious.
ROY ANDRADE - Banjo and Vocals
Raised in Asheville, NC, Roy began playing music at age five when his father introduced him to the accordion. Since, he has made his way through a variety of instruments en route to discovering the old-time banjo. Roy has performed at bluegrass and old-time gatherings from North Carolina to California and enjoys collecting old recordings. He currently works with the Archives of Appalachia restoring and preserving country music recordings.
"The Reeltime Travelers are a musical spectacle, living history lesson, cultural exposition and dance catalyst all wrapped up in a package and sent special delivery from East Tennessee. I highly suggest you see them now..."
-- Rab Cummings, Bozeman Folklore Society