“Bluegrass has brought more people together and made more friends than any music in the world,” bluegrass legend Bill Monroe said. “You meet people at festivals and renew acquaintances year after year.”


Monroe’s words certainly ring true for the members that make up Fog Valley Drifters Bluegrass Band (formerly the Ramblin Phuds), performing Saturday at Plaza Linda. 


Each is from a completely different musical background. Founding member and fiddle player Al Tsacle was classically trained at the Ghiel Irving Parsons Violin School. Upright bassist Cory Welch taught himself on a junkyard guitar. Mandolinist Rachel Bennett was a young prodigy who mastered both the guitar and mandolin before she was able to drive. Banjoist Chuck Hurd learned to play by listening to Flatt & Scruggs records. Guitarist Ross Redding really knew nothing about bluegrass until he joined the band. 


Despite the diverse upbringings, they work together like a well-oiled bluegrass machine.


“Bluegrass is a unique style that’s upbeat, fun to play and easy to get into,” Tscale says. “There’s a certain drive and energy involved.”


The Fog Valley Drifters album Old Songs for New Times is a collection of 16 classic bluegrass tunes that are given new life while keeping the original soul of the songs intact. On the band’s cover of the 18th-century standard “Shady Grove” – a favorite of everyone from Jerry Garcia and David Grisman to Bill Monroe and Charlene Darling – Bennett’s mandolin and Tsacle’s fiddle lead a parade of infectious, foot-stomping bliss.


Meanwhile, the lyrics in the Drifters’ take on Stephen Foster’s 1854 parlor tune, “Hard Times Come Again No More,” still resonate more than 150 years later: “Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears/ While we all sup sorrow with the poor.” 


FOG VALLEY DRIFTERS BLUEGRASS BAND plays at 7pm Saturday, Jan. 28, at Plaza Linda Mexican Restaurant, 9 Del Fino Place, Carmel Valley Village. $10 (includes a drink). 659-4229.