The Shiftless Rounders

5 years of documented rambling, with songs and fans and busted up cars to prove it. countless years prior to this unaccounted forbut scattered field reports state that it was much of the same.



some call the music folk, punk and roll with a banjo, acoustic roots music, alt-folk, singer/song writer, neo-trad.



it's just 2 guys - benny and phill. they both sing like ghosts. and phill writes good songs. and ben plays the dobro like no one else. rumor has it they're really brothers



from the washington post march 2006 ~

The Shiftless Rounders twist the old-time string-band tradition to their own purposes. On the Rounders' second album, "(Places)," those purposes include driving rhythms that treat a homemade dobro and a claw hammer banjo like rock 'n' roll guitars and lyrics that mix Appalachian storytelling and Beat poetry. Phillips Saylor Wisor's "Over the Water" is a fantasia about the transformation of rural America; the verses are understated laments about destruction, but the choruses soar hopefully on Ben Sidelinger's dobro and high harmonies.