Fire Squad

Dry Branch Fire Squad is one of America's most enduring and distinctive traditional bluegrass bands. Founded in October 1976 by Ron Thomason – a former member of the Clinch Mountain Boys – the band takes its name from a small community in Dickinson County, Virginia, where Thomason was born. He has remained the band's one constant: lead singer, mandolinist, occasional banjo and guitar player, and an incomparable MC whose dry, rustic wit and long-form stage monologues have become the band's trademark. Thomason began his professional music career at age 13 and has since collaborated with Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, and the Wilson Brothers, among others. On Rounder Records (now Concord), the band released over a dozen albums, including the acclaimed live record *Live at the Newburyport Firehouse* and the *Thirtieth Anniversary Special Collection*. Since 1984, Dry Branch Fire Squad has served as host band of the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in New York and also hosts the High Mountain Hay Fever Festival in Colorado. The band has performed annually at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass since 2003. Their "bluegrass with the bark left on" – rooted in old-time music, front-porch standards, and modern ballads – has earned them a reputation as one of the finest guardians of the soul of American roots music.