Pharis & Jason Romero
Connecting 2013 to 1927 in a most soulful way.
Pharis and Jason Romero bring vibrant duet singing with guitars and hand-crafted banjos from their Horsefly, BC home. They move from spacious, almost ethereal, old time folk songs to powerful country blues, with stories, an easy rapor, and a feeling that you’ve known them a long time.
Pharis & Jason released their second album, Long Gone Out West Blues, in February 2013, to much critical acclaim, after collecting a 2012 Canadian Folk Music Award for New Artist of the Year and an Independent Music Award for Americana Album of the Year for their duo debut, A Passing Glimpse.
In the tiny hamlet of Horsefly, B.C. – population 700 – lives a pair of musicians with a pair of extraordinary claims to fame. Jason Romero is widely considered to be one of the greatest banjo-builders in the world, with a client list that includes Jerry Douglas and Ricky Skaggs. He and his wife, Pharis – an alumnus of the highly-regarded old-time act Outlaw Social – also happen to have a vintage roots duo that’s experiencing a meteoric ascent in the folk world.
Jason and Pharis met back in 2007 at an old-time fiddle jam in Victoria, where Pharis was living at the time. They first played together in the Haints Old Time String Band with renowned Appalachian fiddler Erynn Marshall. Their 2009 CD, Shout Monah, earned two Canadian Folk Music Award nominations. In 2010, they released an album called Back Up and Push, featuring instrumental fiddle tunes by nineteen celebrated West Coast old-time fiddlers with Pharis and Jason on guitar and banjo back-up.
Then in 2011, they released their first duo album, A Passing Glimpse. It won the aforementioned CFMA and IMA and went to #1 at American folk radio in September 2011. Getting to #6 on the Roots Music Report, it stayed in the Top 20 well into 2012. It was also named one of the best albums of the year by Folk Alley, Uprooted Music Review, and many other critical and peer reviews. Ricky Skaggs says the album reminds him of the music he grew up listening to in Kentucky. Americana UK said it was a contender for North American Folk Album of the Year. Frank Hennessy of BBC Radio Wales called it “completely and absolutely beautiful.” And the Aberdeen Voice wrote that it was “a triumph of melodic and harmonic simplicity.”
Pharis and Jason sing like birds and play wonderful old time music. Listening to their recording, I hear a banjo and a guitar, and imagine these two sweet and talented people opening the door to their cozy home in the wilds of British Columbia. The wind howls and the rain drives outside, but inside is a warm fire and a music from the true vine.¨– Tim O'Brien
Booking inquiries: Frank Hoorn - Email: Frank Hoorn/Near North Music Phone: (250) 847-5228
