photo: Crow And Quill Bold Life.

The Resonant Rogues craft fresh songs from a variety of vintage folk styles, featuring vocal harmonies accompanied by accordion, guitar, banjo, fiddle, and upright bass. With a passion for folk music that spans continents and oceans, the band is led by partners Sparrow and Keith J. Smith. The pair met in Asheville in the Autumn of 2012, and their instant spark lit a blaze that could not be contained. Since then, they have dedicated their lives to crafting and sharing their music, touring extensively around the world. The Rogues weave the threads of European, Middle Eastern, and American folk music together into a beautiful tapestry that simultaneously showcases tradition and innovation, and have spent the last 6 years touring from their mountain home in Western North Carolina all the way to Turkey, Australia, around Europe, and all around the US, sharing their music and learning traditional styles along the way. Self managed, tenacious, and fiercely independent, these adventurous travelers make it a priority to seek out epic nature and intimate, spontaneous cultural experiences on their tours.

In addition to bringing the Rogues on the road, Sparrow and Keith are full time musicians in Asheville, leading a swing band (Sparrow and her Wingmen) and a Balkan band (Black Sea Beat Society) as well as teaching swing dance lessons, keeping a garden, and, most importantly, raising an 11 year old son. The pair pull from some of the best musicians in their chosen genres for touring, playing often with Kristin Harris, Daisy Castro, and Cailen Campbell on fiddle, and Eric Heveron-Smith and Daniel Iannucci on upright bass. The Rogues’ third studio album, Autumn of the World, will be released in mid 2019. With tours to Australia, Alaska, the UK, and various jaunts around the continental US, this is sure to be another exciting year for this adventurous crew….

Sparrow - Songwriter, Accordion, Banjo, and Vocals
Sparrow loves to play music and dance! Her passion for movement and sound started early, with much time and energy spent on choir, orchestra, musical theatre, swing dancing, and figure skating. A voracious student, she has immersed herself in an enormous range of performance arts. Sparrow plays old fashioned originals with The Resonant Rogues, and also leads a traditional jazz band called Sparrow and her Wingmen. She also occasionally performs as a solo artist, and released a album of her original music in 2012. Her instruments include accordion, banjo, viola, violin, piano, and musical saw. She has been belly dancing since 2003, teaching and performing in Asheville and around the country. In 2006-2007, Sparrow attended the Circus Center in San Francisco, primarily for acrobatics, and has toured and performed with Asheville’s Runaway Circus. For more information than you could possibly ever need about Sparrow, check out www.sparrowsings.com

Keith J. Smith - Songwriter, Guitar, Suitcase Bass Drum, Percussion, Vocals
Keith cut his musical teeth in his early teens, playing drums in punk/rock bands. He developed a passion for songwriting upon learning his first chords on guitar, and hosted open mics and a community music festival in his hometown of Menomonie, WI. In the spring of ’09, he left home at the age of 18, and began traveling around the US, hopping freight trains, and street performing for a living. As a traveling busker, he accompanied many acts from New Orleans to the Pacific Northwest and everywhere in between. After a few years of hard traveling and inspiration, he gained a renewed focus on songwriting and studying the guitar. In the summer of ’12 he made a demo recording of his own songs with some top musicians in Seattle. After the album was done, he hopped trains across the country to Asheville, NC, where he soon met Sparrow, and within a few days was laying tracks for her solo album. After deciding they wanted to create a co-lead group, they formed The Resonant Rogues in ’13, and Keith’s adventurous spirit is now satisfied with touring around the world.

Links:

theresonantrogues.com
facebook.com/theresonantrogues
youtube.com/channel/UCX_iRDZoOdnK0qHqq-MU5bA
instagram.com/resonantrogues

Press:

"American folk music has always had a populist perspective, a vision of music made by the people, for the people. Asheville, North Carolina roots band The Resonant Rogues know this well, for they’ve traveled the byways and highways of America, even crossed the water to Europe and the Mediterranean with instruments and songs in tow. Anchored by the songwriting duo Sparrow and Keith Smith, the Rogues have shared songs with train-hoppers in New Orleans, busked on the streets of Budapest, learned Turkish Romani dance in Istanbul, and marched in protest in the hills of Appalachia. Throughout, the stories they’ve heard and the people they’ve met have fueled their music, which abounds with influences like Eastern European Romani brass bands, New Orleans street jazz, old-time stringbands, Woody Guthrie anti-fascist folk, French jazz manouche, and Middle Eastern rhythms. It’s not easy to pull off such a bold combination of genres, but The Resonant Rogues learned this music in person from the people who created it, so they have a tie to each tradition and a working knowledge of what this music means to the ordinary people that make this music every day. It’s a tintype view on the modern world,a cracked image that reflects the past through a prism of the future." ~ Hearth Music

"Their intense cohesion is so intertwined that it feels like they’re playing with one pair of hands. Harmonies seem to pour from one set of lungs… Onstage, the fluency they wield for their craft (or, I should say “crafts”) is impressive, in that understated kind of “come close and listen up,” kind of way." ~ No Depression

"Young North Carolina group craft theatrical pop thrills from a heady mix of old-time, Balkan and Hot Club Influences. Guaranteed festival club floor-fillers!” ~ fRoots Magazine

"With plenty here to appeal to a variety of folk based musical tastes while still maintaining core band identity, it bodes well for a very promising future." ~ Folk Radio UK

photo: Carolyn Marie Stotts.