The Millstone Rounders

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.

Everything good comes back ‘round again and again!

Featuring Oona Grady, Benny Bleu, James Gascoyne, Eric Marjan, and Matt Griffin, The Millstone Rounders play and sing classic country, bluegrass, blues, and more in timeless style – completely acoustic around a single mic.  Easy on the ears, food for the soul!

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 (of the well known groups Blue Ranger and Let’s Be Leonard).

This special performance at Caffe Lena will feature Finger Lakes banjo player, singer, and old time songster Benny Bleu plus multi instrumentalist singer/songwriter Eric Marjan on bass.  Oona and James have played with Benny Bleu in many contexts due to their shared connections to old time music and the Finger Lakes region, where Oona hails from.  Eric, a well-regarded Capital Region music producer and engineer as well as an all around excellent musician, was there at the inception of the Millstone Rounders: when, at a recording session with Chris Carey (Millstone Studios), gathered around a single microphone, James exclaimed, “Hey, we’re The Millstone Rounders!”

Stream this show live at Caffè Lena TV. Enjoy two weeks of access with your live stream ticket.