Taking listeners to a place where Appalachian music, ancient blues and gospel come together in powerful, unexpected combinations, The Tarbox Ramblers are left-field traditionalists whose rough-hewn, direct sound has drawn raves from Rolling Stone, All Things Considered, The New Yorker and many more.

This is old-soul music, and in freewheeling shows at clubs and festivals throughout the US and Canada, The Ramblers – string bassist Scott McEwen, drummer Robby Cosenza and guitarist Michael Tarbox – have played it to considerable effect, making converts of audiences wherever they’ve gone. Robert Plant caught the group’s live show and asked them to open his tour dates right on the spot; he later tapped them as backing band for a set with Alison Krauss at The Rock Hall of Fame’s Leadbelly Tribute.

Playing with the ease and familiarity of musicians who understand each other’s deepest impulses, these gifted interpreters of traditional music also continue to write a growing number of startlingly good original songs. With this band, all that means that a lot can happen quickly: at any given Tarbox show you’re likely to hear thickets of gorgeous backwater guitar, followed by fierce waves of percussion in call-and response drum-and-vocal songs, followed in turn by timeless lightning-in-a-bottle laments. From a whisper to a roar – with what led The Washington Post to describe them as “a force of nature” – The Tarbox Ramblers’ astonishing inventiveness keeps their music vital even as it continues to evolve.