The love of early 20th century American roots music is very apparent with Oak Hill Drifters, who are based out of Orlando, Florida. Their music and performance echos the 1940’s – 1960’s paying homage to some of the great pioneers of that early American roots music.
The band’s current iteration was formed in 2014 that includes Rachel Decker, Craig Roy, George Dimitrov and Tom Pearce whose collective resumes include work with The HoneyBees (Chicago), Nick Curran, Hindu Cowboys and Rocket-88 (Orlando). Rachel Decker fronts the band with a vocal prowess that has drawn comparisons to the likes of Janis Martin and Patsy Cline.
Who are some of your musical influences?
The band has pretty diverse interests and influences partly due to where each member grew up. Fundamentally, though, our influences mostly lie in the American roots music pioneers that defined swing, country, R&B and rock’n roll. You can hear all of that come out and come together in our original songs.
What are some of the best venues you’ve played? Why?
It’s hard to name any particular venues as the best as they’re all valuable to us as touring musicians, but we tend to love the venues that exist solely to feature live music vs those that have an out-of-the-way space in the corner for the band that has to compete with sports on the TV and right of way to the bathrooms. It seems the “live music only” venues are struggling and the pandemic has accelerated that fact. We would just encourage everyone to go out and support live music in these venues!
However, every stage has it’s funny stories – unexpected little occurrences that add to our memories. We had a show in a cool vibey venue where – just as we started playing – a pair of shiny green panties fell out of the rafters and landed on the floor next to us. I have no idea how they got up there in the first place, but I thought, “this is gonna be a good night.”
How are you using your platform to support marginalized people?
We make sure we give credit where credit is due if we are covering a Black or Female artist – I sometimes joke that our shows can be mini music history lessons, because we want our audience to know what the roots are and pay respect to some artists that may have been overlooked because of the color of their skin or their gender.
“Believe Me, Iris” in particular is about a brief encounter with a woman who moved me so much with her inner light that I felt compelled to tell her how much I appreciated and celebrated her, even though I wasn’t born that way. I was lucky she shone her light on me that day – and it shows that it doesn’t matter who it comes from, if you are open to it, people can change your lives if you let them. I carry her joyful radiance with me every day, just from that brief encounter. She was a hell of a woman.
Is there a professional “bucket list” item you would love to check off?
Personally, I’d love to play the Grand Ol’ Opry. Just unbelievable amounts of history and some of my biggest heroes and heroines have come from there. It’s also my not-so-secret desire to hear The Mavericks cover a song or two of ours, as I can’t get enough of Raul Malo’s voice. Also, can we get a song of ours in a David Lynch or Quentin Tarantino film?
Was I supposed to stop at one bucket list item?
What’s the best way a fan can support you?
By downloading, sharing and streaming our songs. Buy our merchandise! Come out to our shows when we’re in your area and say hi. If you like what you hear, tell others through social media about us and help us build our audience. This only happens with the help of our fans, and we appreciate every single one of you!
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