Ben Demerath
Sugarbeat and Solo Feats
by Tom Nelligan

There's no mistaking the energy in Ben Demerath's voice. It's a clear, soaring tenor with roots in bluegrass and branches in country rock. There's also no mistaking the energy in his music, which combines vivid original songs with covers from sources as diverse as Sandy Denny and Tower of Power. The onetime lead singer of the band Sugarbeat, he's a singer/songwriter/guitarist from western Massachusetts whose latest work, Jack of Fools, is a dynamic, eclectic solo album released last year on Compass Records.

Demerath was born in Wisconsin but didn't stay there long. When he was three years old, his family moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, where his father taught at the University of Massachusetts. He still lives in the scenic Pioneer Valley region. "I had a very idyllic childhood growing up in Amherst," he recalled in a phone conversation last October. "We had an amazing music program in school, so I grew up playing classical music. In fact, that's what got me into college at Northwestern, as an oboe major. I listened to all sorts of things, anything that was on the radio. My big idol in high school was Peter Gabriel. But I mainly played and sang classical music until halfway through college.

"In college I got into more rootsy things and listened to a lot of John Hiatt, Steve Earle, things like that." He changed his major to ethnomusicology and played guitar in a rock band. Following graduation, he moved to the San Francisco area and worked local clubs as a singer/guitarist. He began recording an album with help from local musicians, including one of the luminaries of the California progressive bluegrass scene. "Mike Marshall was a big hero of mine," Demerath said. "He really took me under his wing and was really helpful at the beginning of my career, and still is."

Meanwhile, Demerath also met banjoist Tony Furtado, who in turn introduced him to mandolin/bouzouki player Matt Flinner and bassist Sally Truitt. In 1992 they formed the quartet Sugarbeat, and in 1993 they released a vibrant eponymous CD that combined strong harmony vocals with high-power bluegrass instrumentation. Demerath sang lead, played acoustic and electric guitar, and wrote six of the disc's 11 tracks.

"It was really an amazing experience for me," he said of Sugarbeat. "I fell in love with the style we were playing at festivals. Some people have described it as a combination of folk, pop, and roots, but that's how I describe my own music, too."

This is an excerpt from issue #92.
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