The Rank Sinatras

Old-time hillbilly bands were notorious for wacky monikers, a standard born by rock bands as well. So, what about central Missouri’s own Rank Sinatras? If you can hear old Blue Eyes singing, “My kind of town… Hazard is…” then you have an idea where these four alpha-pickers from Boone County, Mo., are coming from. Mike Dulak on guitar and fiddle, guitarist Claud Crum, mandolinist Joe Hinkebein and Forrest Rose on the doghouse bass are "esoteric crazy, from hillbilly to swing." Bluegrass is such a well-defined style that it can embrace songs from disparate styles. Two of its cousins growing up in the 20th Century were jazz and swing. The "World's Oldest Boy Band" mines deep and varied musical lodes from Blind Blake and Bill Monroe to Bob Wills and Guy Lombardo. But don’t let the band’s motto --“If it ain’t rank, it ain’t right”—fool you. Pulling these things off takes astute playing and arranging. Their high-gear bluegrass picking and harmony vocals make clever, entertaining music.

The band’s approach has been more trying on Claud, one of Missouri’s best flattop players. A young Claud disdained his family’s hillbilly music, preferring rock n’ roll and later jazz. Bluegrass bit him the last decade. He joins up with some of the best pickers in the neighborhood, and they’re the Rank Sinatras.

"I was totally ate up with bluegrass music and never wanted to play anything else again," he says. "This band is not a bluegrass band at all. They took me into this kicking and screaming, but I have to admit, it works. This is one of the better bands I’ve played in, and I’m enjoying it - well, most of it."