.Detour is a Michigan-based bluegrass band that combines original contemporary bluegrass sounds with great traditional favorites. Detour's tight focused harmonies, precision instrumentals, and creative melodies take you down a unique bluegrass road.
The band's talented line-up features the soaring lead vocals of Missy Armstrong, the championship fiddling of Peter Knupfer, the inventive rhythm lines of Jack Grant on bass, the soulful guitar of Scott Zylstra, the hard driving mandolin and superb song writing of Jeff Rose, and the stellar banjo playing of Kevin Gaugier. Detour has quickly become a standout — "a bluegrass joyride" that the Lansing State Journal acclaims as "perhaps the best bluegrass band Michigan has yet produced."
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The band members include:
Scott Zylstra (guitar, lead and harmony vocals), is a master of tone, taste and timing on acoustic guitar. Scott is a veteran of a number of bands throughout Michigan including the "Porkypines" and is the owner of Frontier Recording, a highly successful recording and production studio.
.Missy Armstrong(lead, harmony vocals, guitar). "I grew up being exposed to many kinds of music," Missy recalls. "My dad really loved music, he didn't officially sing or play anything but he could remember every lyric to almost any song and we would whistle constantly." Country and gospel harmonies captivated her at an early age, so that she "grew up singing in our small country church whenever I could." Then the bluegrass bug bit her and for a time she ran with her own outfit, the Missy Kay Band, before signing on with the Detour boys. Her greatest influences these days are Eva Cassidy, Etta James, Lynn Morris, Dorothy Moore, Anne Murray, Tony Rice, Bonnie Raitt, Dolly, EmmyLou, and Patty Loveless
Jeff Rose (mandolin, lead and harmony vocals) brings wonderfully fresh and original songwriting to Detour that is progressive yet inspired by tradition. Jeff's bluegrass roots run deep in Eastern Kentucky. He toured extensively for over twenty years with "Iowa Rose," the "High Canyon Ramblers," and the "Porkypines." He has also led numerous workshops on songwriting, mandolin, and guitar technique.
Peter Knupfer (fiddle) is from East Lansing and is an award-winning fiddler with over thirty years of freelance and professional practice to his credit. He toured and recorded with "'Grass, Food & Lodging," a Milwaukee-based bluegrass band, for five years, followed by six years playing country, string swing, and Irish fiddle in a variety of bands. He has shared the stage with the likes of Byron Berline, Donald Stiernberg, Tony Trischka, Peter Ostroushko, and Tim O'Brien. He was the state old-time fiddle champ for Wisconsin (1976) and Kansas (1995).
Kevin Gaugier (banjo, lead and harmony vocals), multi-instrumentalist Kevin Gaugier's three decades of performing experience have taken him from the Eastern European shores of the Black Sea to the wilds of central Alaska where a portable generator was required to power the sound system. Kevin has performed with several mid-Michigan bands through the years, including Sweetcorn with whom he opened for country superstar Wynonna Judd before an audience of tens of thousands and also recorded the theme song for the radio program "Grass Roots" which airs weekly on Kalamazoo's WMUK. Kevin's recent performances include appearances with world-class banjoists Tony Trischka, Janet Beazley, and Bill Evans. Alternating between tasteful, sensitive fills and dazzling improvisation, Kevin's instrumental lead work is a fine complement to Detour's creative sound.
.Jack Grant(bass guitar)is Detour's newest member. A veteran bass player, singer, and cat-lover from Western Michigan, Jack studied music as a kid and then taught himself to play bass. He says his musical interests are "all over the charts," pun intended, including classical jazz, be-bop, reggae, and of course bluegrass: especially Alison Krauss and Union Station and Hot Rize. His favorite bass players include Oscar Pettiford, Paul Chambers, Charles Mingus, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, Jimmy Blanton, Scott LaFaro, Jaco Pastorius, and Barry Bales. "Although I like many different kinds of music, my fave to play and sing is bluegrass. It's not so loud, I love acoustic instruments and then there is the harmony singing. Plus there is a drive that can be had that is delicious.
According to the Lansing State Journal Detour "may be the finest bluegrass band Michigan has yet produced."
