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The Redeye Ramblers

Bluegrass band Asheville, NC (Buncombe County)

Friends David Troxler, Mark Canter, and Bob Reynolds, natives of Western North Carolina and East Tennessee and long-time bluegrass musicians, began to play together regularly in 2006. Calling themselves the Redeye Ramblers, they played as often as their day jobs would permit. (Troxler and Reynolds are both doctors, and Canter works in real estate.) They were joined the next year by bluegrass veteran Tom McKinney, and young Asheville fiddler Lori Little.

Guitarist David Troxler grew up in Salisbury, in a family of church singers. When he moved to the Washington, DC, area in the 1970s, he fell in love with bluegrass. The 1970s and ’80s were an especially fertile time in that city’s long-established bluegrass scene, driven by the many people who had migrated from the mountains to find work in previous decades. The community was introduced to national audiences by such bands as the Seldom Scene and the Johnson Mountain Boys. In time, Troxler moved to Asheville, where he has been practicing pulmonary and critical-care medicine for twenty-five years.

Fellow physician Bob Reynolds, a mandolinist, has lived in Asheville for a quarter-century, though he grew up in the Tennessee foothills town of Alcoa. Balancing medicine and bluegrass music comes naturally to Reynolds, who has been playing in bluegrass and country bands since he was in medical school. Bassist Mark Canter is also a longtime musician. He began to play bluegrass as a little boy, growing up in Weaverville. Fiddler and Ashevillian Lori Little, a radiology technician by day, is the daughter of a longtime Madison County pastor, and it was in that musical county that she first learned about bluegrass music. Banjo player Tom McKinney has been a professional, touring bluegrass artist for forty years. He is an alumnus of the Nashville Grass, Shenandoah Cut-Ups, the Boys from Shiloh, and Country Grass.

The Redeye Ramblers play a mixture of classic and gospel bluegrass, with an occasional tradition-inspired original song.

Availability

The Redeye Ramblers are available to play in concert and at festivals, as well as for parties and other special events.