Guitarist Ron English has enjoyed a long, varied career, deeply rooted in blues, Broadway, bebop, avant-garde, funk, Motown, and gospel. He toured with the Four Tops, Martha Reeves, and the Suoremes’ Mary Wilson, and recorded with Gladys Knight. He played in the pit orchestras of the Fisher Theater and others, backing Broadway shows and pop acts, and played banjo in the Detroit Symphony’s 1986 recording of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.
Ron got started playing standards for dances and receptions around his native Lansing, where his father was a well-known guitar teacher, then graduated to a roadhouse jazz and blues mix in the bands of Bud Spangler and Jackson tenor man Benny Poole, and various organists including long-time employer and collaborator Lyman Woodard. (Along the way, for friends Bob Baldori and The Woolies, he contributed the guitar solo on their 1967 “Who Do You Love”.) Ron joined the Detroit Contemporary Five led by trumpeter Charles Moore in the mid-60s. DC5 was the house band of the Detroit Artists Workshop, an arts collective spearheaded by legendary poet/activist John Sinclair. In the later 60s Ron had a trio with John Dana and Bud Spangler, the Weird Dude Employment Agency.
In the 70s, between Motown tours, organ trio gigs and pit jobs, Ron participated in the self-determination efforts of the Tribe and Strata organizations. Strata produced concerts and records, including CJQ’s “Locations” and Lyman Woodard’s “Saturday Night Special,” which featured Ron. His own 1975 Strata Production from that era, “Fish Feet,” was finally released in 2010 by P-Vine in Japan. From the 70s into the 2000s, Ron toured and recorded with Michigan jazz artists Lyman Woodard, Wendell Harrison, Kenny Cox, the Jimmy Wilkins Orchestra, the Austin-Moro Band, Faruq Z. Bey, Keith Vreeland, Doug Hammond, Leonard King, and Eddie Russ, with whom he toured in Europe.

Ron was Minister of Music at Rosedale Park Baptist Church, 1992 to 2000, and he continues on the worship team there. His Psalm 150 Ensemble CD “ Devotions” was released for 2008, and he was voted Outstanding Gospel/Christian Musician in the Detroit Music Awards. Ron’s Psalm 150 Ensemble ministers occasionally at Rosedale, and other churches, especially historic Fort Street Presbyterian Church in downtown Detroit.
Ron has led his jazz groups in greater Detroit starting when his quartet played every Thursday at Cobb’s Corner in the late 70s. His groups opened concerts for Freddie Hubbard, McCoy Tyner, The Crusaders and others, and played several times at the Detroit Jazz Festival. Ron’s 1988 LP “ From Now to Then” was drawn from live concerts at the Detroit Institute of Arts. He continues to play for concerts, clubs and festivals and was featured in the Charles Boles Quartet in its 8 year run every Tuesday at the Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe, and on Charles’ 2013 CD “ Blue Continuum”, which Ron co-produced for the Detroit Music Factory label. Ron’s own CD, “Dance /Cry/Dance” came out in 2018 on the same label. When Charles retired early in 2019, Ron continued to lead the Tuesday Crew at the Dirty Dog, and their performance on this year’s Detroit Jazz Festival features the premiere of Ron’s new compositions for the group, as well as pieces they developed over the course of the Dirty Dog residency.