| "The Roadoilers" is an old-time string band playing square dance
and contra dance music, traditional country singing, ragtime,
and Irish traditional music. Fiddles, banjos, guitars, bass and
bagpipes are the intruments. John, Perry, Chuck and Mike have
played together in various combinations for over 30 years,
forming The Roadoilers several years ago. Added together,
the band has over 160 years of experience playing old-time and
bluegrass music. |
| John Pedersen was born in Upstate New York, the grandson of a
fiddler. He started playing banjo at age 13 and began playing
for dances not long after that. Prior to the Roadoilers, John
played with Fennigs All Stars, the Swamp Root String Band, the
Arkansas Sheiks, and Highballers from the Planet Hell. John is
a luthier and has worked at musical instrument repair in New York,
Toronto, San Francisco, and now at his own store, Amazing Grace
Music in San Anselmo. Along with his expertise in stringed
instruments, John builds sets of Uillean (Irish) pipes. |
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| Chuck Wiley was born in Bedford, Indiana, 35 miles from Bean Blossom, home of Bill Monroe's bluegrass festival, at which Chuck played some 40 years later with the Phantoms Of the Opry. Chuck took up harmonica at age ten, then guitar at fourteen. His first guitar tune was Wildwood Flower. Chuck is also a fine bass player and sings a wide variety of bluegrass, western and traditional songs. Having retired as a model maker for a well-known special effects house, Chuck is credited in several blockbuster films. |
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| Perry Fly first heard old time music as a youngster in Eastern
Pennsylvania listening to radio station WWVA from Wheeling, West
Virginia. Perry has attended fiddle conventions including the
1971 Mount Pleasant (Iowa) Fiddle Disaster, and has played for
contra and square dances from the early 70s up to the present. In
addition to the Roadoilers, Perry has played with the Bonny Doon
String Band and Highballers From the Planet Hell. In his spare
time, Perry builds houses and boats. |
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Mike Drayton is the grandson of a fiddler and mandolin player
on one side and a tenor banjo player on the other, but he learned
his fiddling from the late Pearl Sivetts of Unionville Missouri.
In addition to Pearl's ragtime style, Mike likes and plays Irish
fiddle, Texas style, and North Country tunes, and has been playing
fiddle for about 35 years, first with The Iowa Corn Dodgers and
later with the Arkansas Sheiks. When not playing the fiddle, Mike
teaches English as a Second Language and trains apprentice Machinists. |
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