Popa's Tunes: Finnders & Youngberg - I Don't Want Love You Can't Give Until I Cry

Mike Finders, Erin Youngberg, Aaron Youngberg, Rich Zimmerman & Ryan Drickey

While anytime is a good time for some Rocky Mountain Bluegrass, the Fall seems a natural fit for crisp string music. Finnders & Youngberg, a quintet of hard-driving roots artists fills the air with vibrant, clear sounds and at times softly-gentle breezes, or brisk bursts of head clearing melodies and harmonies, this is music for big open spaces where family and friends can gather and kick up some dust.

Part of the vibrant Colorado Front Range acoustic music scene each member of Finnders & Youngberg is a roots star in their own right, and the combination of five top players is a key to their precision as a band.

Guitarist and songwriter Mike Finders has one of the most compelling voices in Americana today, buzz-saw hard at times, especially when singing about harsh topics like infidelity (the country roots song “Infidelity”), and softly-gentle, quietly-hurting at other times (as in the song “Lonely Too Long”). Husband-and-wife duo Aaron and Erin Youngberg bring not only wildflower-sweet vocals from Erin (check out the jazz folk title song), but also tight-as-drywall picking from Aaron on banjo and pedal steel. Aaron’s a key recording engineer for bluegrass and roots music in Colorado, and brings a keen ear for mixing acoustic tones to this EP. Fiddler Ryan Drickey is a much in-demand player in Colorado and a remarkably inventive instrumentalist– just listen to his opening riffs on “Hey Ramona.” Twining around Drickey’s racing fiddle, mandolinist Rich Zimmerman completes this quintet, bringing vocals to “Hey Ramona” and a bluegrass chop on his instrument that propels the music.