The Millstone Rounders sing and play a unique blend of Americana, incorporating country, gospel, blues, trans-Atlantic fiddle breakdowns, and proto rock & roll; creating a sound that is both timelessly classic and thoroughly contemporary. They perform on acoustic instruments around a single microphone, capturing a natural sound that is both sonically compelling and visually interesting.
James Gascoyne and Oona Grady have been collaborating with like minded friends playing folk styles and acoustic genres since the early days of their duo, Drank The Gold. Growing out of their desire to expand their sound beyond Irish and old time roots music, they began playing classic country, bluegrass, and blues with fellow instructor at the Caffe Lena School of Music, Matt Griffin (Blue Ranger, Let’s Be Leonard). The group is rounded out by banjo virtuoso Scott Hopkins (The Scott Hopkins Trio, Ashokan Banjo Weekend director) and the deep tone and swing of bassist Dylan Perrillo (Dylan Perrillo Orchestra, The Hot Club of Saratoga).
The sound that The Millstone Rounders seek to create harkens back to a not-so-distant musical past where musicians played acoustically, standing close to one another balancing their voices and instruments using their ears and technique. Until the widespread use of amplification, this would have been the norm everywhere. Furthermore, prior to the advent of the recording industry the idea of musical genres was much less of a thing than it is today. When groups of performers from different regions got together it was truly an event. Because music wasn’t widely disseminated through recordings or the internet, folks from divergent backgrounds would bring together songs and tunes from a wide variety of traditions. Perhaps a gospel hymn might be followed by an old English ballad, a jug band breakdown, an Irish pub song, some country blues, and then a rollicking Scottish fiddle tune.
The Millstone Rounders were born in 2017 at a recording session with Chris Carey (Millstone Studios), when gathered around a single microphone, James exclaimed, “Hey, we’re The Millstone Rounders!”
Everything good comes back ‘round again and again!
