Live Music – Jef Ramsey

After three years of honing his craft which was steeped in the fertile ground of in Austin, Texas from 1983-86, Jef Ramsey spent 22 years toiling in the greater Seattle area acoustic music scene; first as a solo performer and then as a front man/singer/mandolinist with several regional bluegrass bands; fronting Naugahyde Ride, an acoustic Texas swing band, then blossoming into a jazz and blues singer with the Pacific Northwest’s popular Ramsey-Collins Band for 17 years.  On a National Endowment of the Arts grant in 2006, Jef and three of his musical cohorts formed a quartet called Racogalu which performed Bohemian, Moravian, and Slavic music.

 In 2011 Jef moved to Southern Oregon where he now performs with Kathryn Casternovia as Blades of Grass (duo to quintet), as a sideman to many acts in the Rogue River Valley, and as a solo performer playing a wide range of styles on mandolin, guitar and voice including blues, jazz, vintage country, r&b, and world music. . .