Crooked Road Ramblers
The Crooked Road Ramblers are an old-time band from the Blue Ridge Mountains, steeped in the traditional music of the area. You can find them providing a mixture of instrumental dance music, old ballads, traditional country, and bluegrass at notable venues across the region like the Carter Family Fold, the Albert Hash Memorial Festival, and local dance halls.
The band was founded in 2002 by fiddler Kilby Spencer, originally from Whitetop, Virginia. Kilby has been playing old-time music for most of his life, learning from his parents, Thornton and Emily, who revived the Whitetop Mountain Band in 1975. He was also influenced by his cousin, Dean Sturgill, and recordings of his uncle, Albert Hash. Kilby has collected and preserved local recordings for many years and serves on the board of the Field Recorders Collective, which aims to release rare traditional music recordings. In addition to leading the Crooked Road Ramblers, Kilby has been the full-time fiddle player for the Whitetop Mountain Band since his father’s passing in 2017. He has frequently served as a judge for local fiddlers’ contests, including the prestigious Galax Old-Time and Bluegrass Fiddlers Convention. Kilby has performed at notable venues such as the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the National Folk Festival, the North Carolina Folk Festival, and the historic Carter Family Fold. He has appeared on several compilations and released 6 full-length albums with the Crooked Road Ramblers.
Kelley Breiding of Crumpler, NC propels the band forward with her clawhammer banjo playing and high-powered vocals. Kelley has won many blue ribbons for her banjo playing and also leads her own traditional country music group, Kelley and the Cowboys.
John Perry plays guitar and also sings. John is a retired welder from Independence,VA and grew up playing with his brothers, Buck (banjo) and Arnold (guitar), in a band called The New River Ramblers (which featured fiddlers such as Jerry Moretz,Thornton Spencer and James Burris). They were frequent prize winners and favorites of dancers throughout the region for most of the 1970s until they disbanded in the late 1980s. John’s individualistic guitar style gives the band much of its unique driving sound. John is also a wonderful singer who has that “high lonesome” sound. His father played clawhammer banjo and also sang.