RANDY STEELE

Growing up in Bradley County Tennessee near both the North Georgia and North Carolina borders, Randy was surrounded by music from an early age. His Papaw being a lifelong Pentecostal preacher and pastor, and his Mom spent her youth traveling from church to church singing as part of the Henson Family. “She taught me how to practice correctly and that has been one of the greatest gifts. It has proven useful time and time again within music and just in life in general.”

In his teens in the mid-90s, Steele discovered the budding Jam band scene while tagging along with his uncle Paul Henson who toured and recorded with the Aquarium Rescue Unit. Randy went on to tour some with a band and studied Jazz Guitar at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville for a bit, then he stopped playing music for a while and became a firefighter with the Chattanooga Fire Department and got married and settled down. He says, “I still wrote songs constantly but I figured my music days were mostly behind me.”

As a career firefighter, Randy says, “I needed something to help me decompress at the firehouse, and then I found the banjo…” To pass the time, Randy began practicing Scruggs style banjo and, a few years later in 2008, began performing as the frontman for Slim Pickins Bluegrass Band. They went on to spend a month living in Belgium and played shows all over Europe, eventually though between jobs and family obligations, the band settled into playing a few select shows in the Chattanooga area each year. 

He started branching out solo with the release of his 2016 album, Songs from the Suck, which was recorded at the legendary FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and he began to do some light touring solo and with a trio. In 2018 he released an EP, Moccasin Bender, and won an Independent Music Award for Bluegrass ‘Song of the Year’ for “Mobile Soon” (and was nominated for Bluegrass Album of the Year), as well as being selected as a finalist in the Newsong Music LEAF Songwriting Competition. 

Steele then spent 2019 hard on the road clocking in 90 shows in 17 states in 47 cities before being forced off the road by the 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic. In 2019 Captain Randy Steele was also named Fire Department Officer of the Year and was awarded a Medal of Valor, as he was recognized for his outstanding efforts at emergencies in 2018.

He says, “My 2020 was looking pretty good when the pandemic struck and kind of rearranged everything. Though the touring ceased and the live shows stopped, writing and recording continued. I got out of the pandemic with 75% of an original album recorded with Darrell Scott producing and playing guitar. That recording is scheduled to be released in 2024 and has some really great songs on it. I kind of have my feet in two different rivers. One is in the bluegrass and banjo world, the other is in the songwriting world.”  2021 started off with a successful spring tour in South Carolina and a summer full of full band and solo shows.

“As it all went back to gigs and regular life though, I really wanted to get back into some traditional bluegrass. I had been touring as a trio and decided to try to start a bluegrass band based on that touring outfit, and thus High Cold Wind was born.”

In his various musical formats over the years (solo, with High Cold Wind, and with Slim Pickins Bluegrass) Randy has played with and opened for a number of incredible performers including Sam Bush, Darrell Scott, Steep Canyon Rangers, Kitchen Dwellers, The Infamous Stringdusters, Nick Lutsko, IIIrd Tyme Out, Little River Band, Jack Pearson, Malcolm Holcomb, Roger Alan Wade, Nicholas Edward Williams, Lew Card and The Deer, and more.