Caledonia Drive

“Hard driving”, “talented”, “excellent vocals”, “tight harmonies”, “original”, “great instrumentation”, “excellent material” – these are all quotes that have been used to describe Caledonia Drive. Influenced by the likes of the Lonesome River Band, Blue Highway, Ronnie Bowman, and many others, Caledonia Drive represents the best in Modern Bluegrass and Acoustic Music.

Though the band is relatively new, the members have been performing for many years:

Ron Savoie has played with several bluegrass bands, including the acclaimed Canadian Grass Unit, Acoustic Horizon, Bluegrass 4, and others. He is one of the top mandolin players in the country and has won “mandolin player of the year” awards from the Eastern Canada Bluegrass Awards association. He is a multi-instrumentalist and is very accomplished on guitar and fiddle as well.

Calvin DeLeavey has played with the popular bluegrass band “Backroads” for the last few years and has played with various Bluegrass and Country groups over the years, including Blue Mountain, Downeast Partners, Borderline, and the NB Country Showcase. He is also an accomplished studio musician and producer. Calvin has written several songs currently being performed by this group including Middle of June, The Love Between You and Me, She’s Gone, and others.

Ron Girouard is a very talented multi-instrumentalist. The youngest member of the band, Ron has played with the bluegrass band “True Blue” before taking over guitar duties for Caledonia drive. He has already recorded two albums with True Blue and is known as one of the region’s top musicians.

David Lewis has played with the NB Bluegrass band “Backroads” for the past few years. Dave has played with several bands over the years including Blue Mountain, NB Country Showcase, and Shirley Myers. Dave is very accomplished on both electric and acoustic bass. He has performed on several albums as a studio musician and is an excellent singer / songwriter.

One of the bands first bookings was a festival in Ontario, which is a 16 hour drive from the band's home base of Moncton. "We were all a bit nervous since it was our first big gig and it was so far away. We knew we would be sharing the stage with the likes of Mountain Heart and the Steep Canyon Rangers and we were kind of excited", Calvin explained, the band's banjo player. However the band piled into an RV, made the trip to Ontario and performed, and the rest as they say, is history. The band was received so well it blew the band members away. "I couldn't believe the response of the teenagers in the front row" said Dave, who handles the bass duties in the band. Ron Girouard also commented "the best thing this band could do to start our summer tour was to get in an RV and drive 16 hours together".

After a very successful summer tour, Caledonia Drive is looking ahead to 2008 and has already established more bookings for 2008 than the total 2007 festival season. The band is in the process of creating its first CD that will be available in mid 2008.