Americana Music Magazine – Bluegrass, Roots, Folk, Blues, and Old-Time
South Western Virginia is home base for Country/Americana artist Ron Short. Ron and his band, The Possom Playboys, feature a vibrant sound reminiscent of bands that once traveled the two-lane highways of America, filling the dance floors of those iconic road side honky-tonks.
Ron is a multi-instrumentalist, and his musical influences range from Old Regular Baptist “line-out” singing to the newer styles of today’s Americana artists. In addition to being a prolific songwriter, Ron is also a playwright, and has spent the past 30 years performing with the Roadside Theater all over the world, from the Czech Republic, to the Lincoln Center in New York City. He is the co-producer of Music of Coal: Mining Songs from the Appalachian Coalfields, and producer of a PBS series companion CD, Appalachia: Music From Home.
“I grew up with this music,” Ron said. “And I was lucky enough to belong to one of those mountain families where music was just a central part of life for us. My uncles played. My mother and father couldn’t work without singing. And I went to an Old Regular Baptist Church, which has that old eternal sound of hymn singing that goes back ages and ages. So I’m connected to a musical history where I’m just another chapter in it. I’m the hardest working musician flying under the radar you can find,” he mused.
“I believe that if we as musicians are going to play publically, we need to dedicate ourselves to making sure that what we are communicating to people is the timelessness of the music. And if we then as musicians ourselves become timeless too, that’s fine. But we need to understand that our job is deliver up the music. It is through the music that we may then become timeless.”
In the past 20 years, Ron has recorded seven CDs, and his latest, Hillbilly Highway, is a continuing example of his talent, heritage, and love for the music.