Manhattan Valley Ramblers
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Manhattan Valley Ramblers

Band Folk Acoustic

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This band has not uploaded any videos

Music

Press


"Live and Pickin' In New Orleans"

John's banjo playing is clean and precise. . . . He has a good, versatile singing voice. - The Old-Time Herald


"Hell and High Water"

Bill Christophersen's "Hell and High Water" is old-time fiddling at its finest. - Bluegrass Unlimited


"Hazel the Delta Rambler"

“Put together close harmony in the grand brother duet singing tradition with the intricacy of bluegrass and modern-oldtime instumental work and you have the Manhattan Valley Ramblers. A new look at old traditions, clean crisp,top of form.” - www.wwoz.org


"WERU's "Bronzewound" Playlist"

Darwin Davidson (WERU-FM) included the Manhattan Valley Ramblers' debut CD
Ballads and Barnburner in the “Bronzewound” playlist, the Top 20 albums from 2009.
- Darwin Davidson


Discography

Radio appearances include WKCR's Moonshine and Honky Tonkin' Shows.

Photos

Bio

The Manhattan Valley Ramblers began in 2006 as a fiddle-banjo duo. Both John and Bill had played old-time music for years, so it wasn’t hard to find tunes in common. When local gigs started coming in, songs were added to round out the sets. As the harmonies were worked up and and the mandolin integrated into their sound, the wealth of ballad material by the likes of the Carter Family, the Blue Sky Boys, the Stanley Brothers and the Louvin Brothers lured them further into the realms of bluegrass and country.

California-born multi-instrumentalist John Saroyan (“Live and Pickin’ in New Orleans”) spent several years in New Orleans playing with Hazel and the Delta Ramblers and making forays into Appalachia, where he met, and later guested with, Wayne Henderson and the pickers who recently toured the Northeast as the Crooked Road. New Yorker Bill Christophersen (“Hell & High Water,” “The Mysterious Redbirds: 1992-1998,” “The Lazy Aces: Still Lazy After All These Years,” “The Fly-By-Night String Band”) has recorded and performed with John Cohen and Tom Paley of the New Lost City Ramblers; his Rock-House Gamblers recently opened for Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys.

In Ballads and Barnburners (November 2009), the band's independently produced debut CD, Saroyan and Christophersen blend songs culled from the classic “brothers duets” of early country music – the Blue Sky Boys, the Stanley Brothers, the Louvin Brothers – with fiddle-banjo tunes of an older stamp. Ballads and Barnburners and the MVR repertoire in general, Bill admits, is a nervy endeavor. “Not many voices, after all, can compare with the likes of the Louvin Brothers'. We’re definitely punching above our weight. But we’ve tried to stay close to the spirit of the original songs and to keep the production simple so that the songs remain front and center. We’ve also resisted the temptation to bring in slick-picking guest musicians. There are no additives here.” Says John, “We think listeners will be struck by the material and by the straightforwardness of our approach, and we hope hard-core genre purists will recall that, once upon a time, old-time and bluegrass weren’t armed camps facing off against each other.”

Past gigs in the New York Area include: Hudson River Museum, Bronx Botanical Gardens, Postcrypt Coffeehouse, P&W Sandwich Shop, unWined at Symphony Space, Orchard House Cafe, The Good Coffeehouse Music Parlor at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian and many house concerts.