Rusty Gears

The Rusty Gears are a Colorado acoustic roots and bluegrass quartet whose members live in Broomfield, Arvada and Lafayette, in the northwest suburbs of Denver. The band is Ernie Johnson, mandolinist John Gowdy, Matt Gabriel and five-string fiddler Laima Haley, and all four sing. All are long-serving Front Range players: Johnson has worked the Denver-area scene for more than fifty years in bands including Mythology and Terraplane, and he, Gowdy and Gabriel previously performed together in Crooked Cannon. Their repertoire mixes traditional bluegrass and original material with covers drawn from well outside the genre, reaching from Bill Monroe and Gillian Welch to the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix. They work the regional circuit of breweries, taprooms and small halls, including Wonderland Brewing in Broomfield, Odyssey Beerwerks and the Bluegrass Lounge in Olde Town Arvada, and have taken festival dates at Palisade Park Amphitheater on the Western Slope.

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