Ralph White
| Ralph White | |
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Ralph White performing in Bastrop, Texas on June 22, 2013.
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| Background information | |
| Born | July 9, 1952 |
| Origin | Austin, Texas |
| Genres | Old-time, Country, Folk, Blues, Cajun |
| Occupation(s) | Musician |
| Instruments | Fiddle, banjo, accordion, mbira |
| Years active | 1970s-present |
| Labels | Altco Recordings, Self Sabotage Records, Feeding Tube Records, Monofonus Press, Mystra Records |
| Associated acts | Bad Livers, Gulf Coast Playboys, Amy Annelle |
| Website | www |
Ralph E. White III (born July 9, 1952) is a musician from Austin, Texas who has drawn inspiration from traditional blues, old-time country, rock, African and Cajun music, among other traditions. He principally plays banjo, fiddle, accordion, guitar, kalimba and mbira. He was a founding member of the innovative, influential, and truly great Austin trio the Bad Livers, formed in 1990 with banjoist and singer/songwriter Danny Barnes and bass and tuba player Mark Rubin. During the early 1990s, "White's sizzling dexterity on fiddle and accordion" was a "cornerstone of their buzz." After leaving the Bad Livers in late 1996, White embarked on a solo career. Since then, he has become a legendary Austin musician, and was chosen by Kevin Curtin of the Austin Chronicle as the best strings player of 2015. While the style of music he plays is difficult to categorize, No Depression concluded that "White has invented a type of music that sounds traditional while also being refreshingly new."
White met Danny Barnes at a Cajun jam session in South Austin in 1990, after which they began playing with Mark Rubin as The Danny Barnes Trio. The trio adopted the name Bad Livers in the summer of 1990.
The Bad Livers began playing frequently in Austin, including a weekly set at the Saxon Pub. Due to the frequency of their gigs and the length of their sets, the Bad Livers performed many covers, including songs by bands such as Motörhead and the Misfits. As a result, critics often described their music with terms such as "thrash-grass," "acoustic bluegrass with a punk death wish," "something called 'contemporary bluegrass,'" and "acoustic-metal-bluegrass." Rejecting these generic labels, Don McLeese of the Austin American-Statesman wrote: "Rather than reviving anything or attempting to accommodate contemporary music trends, the trio seems to inhabit a musical dimension all its own, a Twilight Zone of Bad Liverdom." Barnes denied that the Bad Livers played bluegrass at all. Rather, he said, they had created an original sound: "This isn't bluegrass and it isn’t this or that. It's Bad Liver music. We end up making our own thing." During this time, White expressed appreciation for music "the way it was before pop culture put it into the radio, before it was homogenized and put out on a grand scale," as well as for postpunk, saying: "To me, a lot of the postpunk music seems as direct and honest as that was, not built up in pop arrangements, but full steam ahead." The varied musical interests of the band members resulted in a sound that was "as hard to pin down as a buttered-up hog," and Austin country legend Don Walser once remarked that the only question he couldn't answer was what kind of music the Bad Livers played.
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