Monica Taylor and Jared Tyler bring their bluegrass band- Red Routes with legendary fiddle man, Shelby Eicher and his son jazz and bluegrass man, Nathan Eicher on upright bass- and their roots trio with Tulsa guitarist and songwriter Travis Fite to the Blue Door.
Monica, songwriter and singer from the Red Dirt music family and member of the prominent regional western swing band, The Cherokee Maidens & Sycamore Swing, and Monica & Her Red Dirt Ramblers (Don Morris, Gene Williams, Rick Gomez, and Fite,) has long enjoyed playing the Blue Door Music Hall, and performing with her ‘brothers’ in Red Dirt multi-instrumentalists and extraordinary vocalists: Travis Fite (guitar, slide) and Jared Tyler (dobro, mandolin, guitar) both from Tulsa, OK and members of the Cherokee nation just as Monica… their harmonies are like sibling or ancient like their ancestors may have sung together somewhere in the Appalachians.
The Red Routes bluegrass band is made up of four Oklahoma artists who have years of bluegrass and roots music stuffed in their instrument cases! Tyler has played The Blue Door many times on his own, with Fite and Taylor, and with North Carolina bard Malcolm Holcombe who he tours with regularly. His new album Dirt on My Hands is stunning!
Travis Fite has toured with funk-soul bands such as Phat Thumb, What It Is (San Francisco), Leon Russell, and played with such R&B luminaries as Tom Brown, Full Flava Kings, Wayman Tisdale, Eldridge Jackson and Toni Estes. Travis can be seen with his current group, the Funk-rock-fusion group What’s That (Tulsa) and well as his other projects, Soul Revolution Reggae Band and a solo loop station act “Uncle Funkus” He’s also a member of multi-styled ensembles with Monica Taylor (the Cimarron Songbird) and the Steven White Group.
Shelby grew up in Northern Ohio playing square dances with his mom, dad and grandmother. The band consisted of his grandmother and the Fulton County Sand Shifters.As a member of Roy Clark’s band for 15 years, Shelby recorded five albums with Roy and appeared numerous times on The Tonight Show and Hee Haw. Currently he performs 20 times per month and teaches fiddle, mandolin and guitar to 30 students. He plays with Monica’s band The Cherokee Maidens & Sycamore Swing, was the writer of their song of the year with the American Association of Western Artists, Longing for Tulsa and You; was the arranger of their third and latest CD My Dixie Darlin, and is leader of the authentic western swing Tulsa Playboys band.
Nathan Eicher is Jazz bass performer with the degrees and the years of experience to make him formidable in the jazz, swing, and bluegrass world. He grew in a family of professional musicians, including a mother who is one of Tulsa’s primo vocalists. He was the director of the jazz education for the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame before taking a Tulsa public school teaching position in 2017. Eicher and his father host the very popular Eicher Wednesdays at The Jazz Hall of Fame, where they have some of the very best jazz, swing, bluegrass, and country artists as guests each week there in Tulsa. He is also the upright bassist for The Cherokee Maidens & Sycamore Swing.
