The Roots FM Launches Live Concert Series with the Delmar Ramblers

Our first live concert from our new home was a big success!

Saturday afternoon, November 7, marked another milestone for The Roots FM. We broadcast our first live concert from the public performance space in our new home at the Elevator Shared Office Space building.

The featured performers were the Delmar Ramblers, four outstanding musicians with deep roots in the St. Louis music scene and years of experience performing and recording across the country.

The concert took place in Elevator’s Public Event Space, which can accommodate 125 people. It was our first opportunity to put our new digital sound system to work for a live performance with an audience in the room and listeners tuning in over The Roots FM.

And what a success it was!

Meet the Delmar Ramblers

The Delmar Ramblers brought together four exceptionally talented musicians:

Gary Hunt — Guitar and Vocals

Gary is a versatile musician who has played with numerous country and bluegrass bands throughout the St. Louis area. He’s a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and vocalist with a long background in roots music.

Thayne Bradford — Mandolin, Fiddle, Guitar, and Vocals

Thayne has been performing roots music in the St. Louis area for more than 50 years. He’s played and recorded with many well-known and respected groups, both locally and nationally.

Chris Brashear — Fiddle, Mandolin, Guitar, and Vocals

Chris is an accomplished singer-songwriter and instrumentalist with a clear, distinctive voice and impressive vocal range. He has performed and recorded with numerous bands across the country. His recent move to St. Louis is a welcome addition to our local roots music community.

Vince Corkery — Upright Bass and Vocals

Vince has been a familiar presence in the St. Louis music scene for many years, performing country, bluegrass, Cajun, and rockabilly music.

     

The Big Move Fundraising Effort Made It Possible

This concert was much more than a musical event. It was also the first real test of the new digital sound equipment purchased through our Big Move fundraising effort.

And it passed with flying colors.

Our new PreSonus digital audio console, paired with a digital stage box and JBL powered speakers, let us handle all the microphone and direct feeds to produce two completely separate stereo mixes.

Our Chief Engineer, Daryl McQuinn, created one mix for the PA speakers in the performance space and sent a second mix digitally over CAT5 cable to The Roots FM broadcast control room.

This meant we could give the audience in the room the sound they needed while independently producing the best possible sound for our radio listeners.

The results were spectacular.

The audience was genuinely surprised by the sound quality in the room. And the broadcast audio was nothing short of spectacular. Even the musicians commented on the quality of the condenser microphones we used to capture their string instruments.

Everything worked just as we had hoped.

For everyone who contributed to the Big Move fundraising effort, this concert was a wonderful demonstration of what your donations have made possible. We now have the equipment and facilities to produce live music performances that would have been difficult, if not impossible, in our former location.

What’s Next? More Live Music!

Our goal is to present one live concert every month, broadcast directly from our new home.

And because this is The Roots FM, you can expect the music to change from month to month.

This month it was bluegrass. Next month it might be blues, rock and roll, ragtime, or something entirely different.

That’s what makes The Roots FM different. We love all kinds of roots music, and we want to bring it to our listeners while promoting live performances by talented St. Louis musicians.

Best of all, Roots members get free tickets to these concerts.

We are still working out the details of our future concert schedule, but we’re excited about the possibilities.

Missed the Concert? You Can Still Hear It!

The show is over, but you can still enjoy this wonderful performance in two ways.

1. Listen to the entire concert on our mobile app.

Download the Roots FM app for Apple or Android, then: (details on the front page of our website)

• Open the On Demand Archive.
• Select Down Yonder with Keith Dudding, Saturday, November 7, at 11 AM.
• Move the playback slider forward one hour to noon, when the concert begins.

You can listen to the entire performance anytime for the next two weeks.

2. Listen to our 10-minute concert sample.

We’ve included a 10-minute sample of the Delmar Ramblers’ performance below. Give it a listen. We think you’ll be impressed.

This Is Just the Beginning

When we began planning our move to the Elevator building, one of our goals was to create new opportunities to bring live music to our listeners by inviting them into our home.

Saturday’s concert demonstrated that we can do exactly that.

Thanks to the musicians, Keith Dudding, our engineering team, everyone who attended, and especially the supporters who made our Big Move possible.

We’re just getting started.

The Roots FM — Save The Music.