The Steep Canyon Rangers were perfectly suited to help welcome the Suwannee Roots Revival crowd back to Live Oak, FL for the 2021 edition the beloved music festival because, in the end, it’s their home as well. Between their rambunctious approach to Americana music, the loving connection they built with the fans over the years, and their ability to get most any audience up and scootin’ boots they were a near-perfect fit for the first Roots since the beginning of the “Covid Times.”
When festival founder Beth Judy welcomed the band to the stage she rightly identified the Steep Canyon Rangers as part of the family. The fans certainly made them feel at home, cheering them from the moment they took the stage to the last note with the same joyful energy. The Steep Canyon Rangers even had a special new family connection to debut…a new song co-written with Suwannee Roots/Magnolia Fest photographer Frank Serio.
Serio has served as the photographer for the spring and fall bluegrass and Americana events since their decades-long ago inception and learned a thing or three about songwriting along the way. One night around a Suwannee camp fire Frank heard a tipsy patron boast “I’ve got karma to burn” as he wandered off into the night. The phrase struck Serio as worth remembering and a jotted down post-it note with the phrase “Karma to burn” spent the next few years on his truck’s dashboard worming its way into his subconscious.
When an opportunity to collaborate on a track with the Rangers’ banjo player Graham Sharp and drummer Michael Ashworth came knocking, Serio was happy to finally find a home for that inspired bit of wisdom in their new tune, “In The Next Life”. Steep Canyon Rangers are, rather famously, no strangers to collaborations thanks to their award-winning turns working with the likes of Hollywood legend Steve Martin and musicians like Edie Brickell. Sadly, Serio had to miss this year’s Roots Revival due to a family illness but that didn’t stop the Rangers from debuting the song in its partial place of inspiration, with some kind words about their much-missed collaborator.
This is just one example of how a long-running event like Suwannee’s Roots Revival can give folks the chance to go from sharing space in a venue to sharing their lives outside of the places they live in the day to day world. Unexpected connections forged into friendships that last lifetimes all brought about by the shared love of music. The “Spirit” part of the Spirit Of The Suwannee manifests in so many different ways…and to hear it given musical life is a testimony to the spirit of working together in humility and love. After such a hard year for us all it was great to be so pointedly reminded of that by members of our extended but much loved family.
Check out this new collaboration and a couple other crowd-pleasers from our own man in the Suwannee, Rex-A-Vision.
Steep Canyon Rangers — “In The Next Life” — 10/15/21
Steep Canyon Rangers — “Take My Mind” — 10/15/21
Steep Canyon Rangers — “Take The Wheel” — 10/15/21
Cover photo by Ken Voltz