I am 100% certain that most of you have never even heard about this trio. Who are they?
They are Carl Rusk (great guitar, fab voice and ex-Crawdaddys/ex-Mystery Machine), Ron Silva (boss drums, cool voice and ex-Crawdaddys), and Tom Ward (great bass, good voice and ex-gravedigger five). As you can see, two of them are of late Crawdaddys fame; that means allot. I regard the Crawdaddys as the most important band of the infamous "neo garage" wave of the late '70s and early '80s. Mainly because, along with the Chesterfield Kings, they were the very first of the movement, and because they chose to die out, rather than selling their souls as the Kings did.
The Nashville Ramblers were together for only a few years and remain mostly unknown because, other than their brilliant two songs "The Trains" and "Fragile Child" on "American Heart and Soul", they never released a record. Believe me; that's heartbreakingly sad!
Thanks to Carl, I had the occasion to see the ramblers in rehearsal. Incredible man. They were so bloody great!! They may be a trio but they sound like an orchestra. It all happened on a sunny, San Diego afternoon.
It was really not like a rehearsal at all- it felt more like being in a joint with a jukebox. You throw a song title in the air, and they play it! Eventually, every cover they did turned out to be a great version! They played stuff by The Hollies, The Sorrows, The Beatles, The Kinks- from the beautiful "Fragile Child" to the punker "You Got What I Want". They can make anything sound good. . . And this with only three members!
After about two hours it was over. We went back home, but there Carl picked up a guitar, Ron a bass, and they started again! This time they played only soft songs, like "You Make Me Feel So Good ", "Color of Love" by We The People, "Mr. Wind" by The Rocking Ramrods- it's a shame that I can't express how great they were. The ramblers work well even as a duo! Wow!
Sadly enough, it seems like the Nashville Ramblers are not playing these days. This is really too bad because the whole world really missed something! Mono Man used them as his own Lyres on a recent California tour-I got the impression that the boys were not really too fond of this experience. In fact Mono Man kicked them around for playing too well!