Ron Stewart – Banjo

Ron Stewart - BanjoRon Stewart is well on the road to becoming a legend in contemporary bluegrass music. He is already one of the most sought-after multi-instrumental session players in the genre’s history, and is in high demand as an engineer and producer. Stewart grew up in rural southern Indiana, an hour and a half from the famous Bill Monroe’s Bean Blossom bluegrass festival, surrounded by a family that played bluegrass and oldtime country music and a community rich with musicians. In his thirty-three years of playing banjo, fiddle, guitar, bass, and mandolin, Ron has gone from fronting his family band for over ten years to working with a who’s who of bluegrass, including Lynn Morris, Curly Seckler, a guest appearance at age nine on a live album with Lester Flatt, and, most recently, a six-year stint as fiddler for JD Crowe and The New South. Notably, Ron engineered much of and played fiddle on The New South’s 2006 release, “Lefty’s Old Guitar,” which is nominated for a Grammy.

Stewart has been seen filling in with a host of top bluegrass acts including the Lonesome River Band, Rhonda Vincent, the bluegrass supergroup Longview (of which he is now a member), Don Rigsby, the Bluegrass Album Band, Kenny and Amanda Smith, Blue Ridge, and many more. Chances are, if you have a bluegrass CD in your collection from the last ten years, Ron is probably on it.

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Ron was given IBMA’s “Fiddle Player of the Year” award  in 2000, and has been nominated every year since. In addition to his work with the Dan Tyminski Band, Ron is currently working on a new solo CD as a follow up to his 2001 Rounder release “Time Stands Still,” which featured several Ron Stewart original songs and instrumentals. To quote Lynn Morris, “Ron Stewart has Flatt and Scruggs in his deepest roots, the feel of a Mississippi blues man in his soul, and the power of a lightning bolt in his touch.”

For more information about Ron, visit RonnieStewart.com.