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Ross Redding grew up in Concord and quickly
developed his love and talent for singing and playing the guitar. When
Ross joined the band in 1999 he knew very little about Bluegrass music
but he learned to apply his country blues and swing jazz influences to
this style of music. What he likes best about the bluegrass idiom is the
variety of acoustic instruments all playing together with no room for
timing or intonation mistakes. Ross now lives in Modesto with his wife
and two daughters.
Chuck Hurd’s family settled in
the Long Beach area when he was a young teen. He started playing the banjo
at 13 and got hooked on bluegrass banjo when he heard the “Ballad
of Jed Clampett” on TV. Chuck taught himself to play the banjo by
listening to Flatt and Scruggs and Dillards records and continued to play
during his high school and college years. He took a long break from the
banjo when he began a career in the Army and then started playing again
in 1996. Chuck joined the band in 2003.
Rachel Bennett showed exceptional talent
in music when she was a young student in Monterey. She mastered both the
guitar and the mandolin at an early age. Rachel is also an outstanding
singer and composer. The band regularly performs her original compositions
and has included some of her work in the latest Fog Valley Drifters CD
- Old Songs For New Times.
Brooks Judd was born and raised in Hayward
California where he developed a love for all types of music. Brooks is
a huge fan of bluegrass music and of Jerry Garcia. He converted from an
avid music listener to a performer when a good friend of his gave him
a stand-up bass in the mid 1980s. Brooks played with the Heartland String
band for several years and in 1996 formed a band, also called the Fog
Valley Drifters. Brooks joined us in 2000 and was instrumental in giving
the band its current name.
Al Tsacle is a founding member of the band. He hails from San Francisco, where he began his musical career with classical training at the Ghiel Irving Parsons violin school. He played in the San Francisco youth symphony orchestra and was a member of the Beethoven Trio. In the late 1960s Al switched from classical to folk music and played for many years with the popular bay area Balkan folk band, The Merakledes. He began to play Bluegrass music in 1996 when the Fog Valley Drifters band was formed by a group of professors at California State University Stanislaus.