ROSS BELLENOIT

As of 2020, Ross Bellenoit has forged quite a career path, racking up impressive credits as a guitarist, composer and record producer. After moving to Philadelphia in 2003, Bellenoit quickly became the leading axe-man for a thriving singer-songwriter scene that spawned Amos Lee, Birdie Busch, and Chris Kasper. Since 2010, he's been making his mark as a songwriter himself, and also as a producer and arranger.

Raised in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, Bellenoit trained on classical guitar & viola for ten years before studying jazz guitar at the University of the Arts — but Bellenoit is not the sort of musician who lets his studies do the talking. A spontaneous, in-the-moment improviser and consummate team player, Bellenoit has spent the past six years training himself to stay on his toes, and to anticipate the un-obvious. "If there's one thing that I try to keep aware of," Bellenoit says, "it's the song's temperament. No matter the style or context of the song, you have to surrender yourself completely to what the music is telling you in the moment. Serve the song, and the song will serve you."

Bellenoit more often than not can be found at Turtle Studios, the last remaining original “large” studio standing in Philadelphia. He has contributed to a wide array of albums — rock, jazz, gospel, R&B, country, even a song about cheeseburgers written for Philadelphia Inquirer food critic Craig Laban. He's worked as a guitarist with renowned producers John Carter Cash, Phil Nicolo, Brian McTear and Devin Greenwood — and for the past 12 years has been producing records for a variety of artists himself.

Bellenoit has also racked up a considerable amount of touring experience, most notably touring with Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello as a member of Amos Lee's band in 2007. He's made multiple regional tours with honky-tonk group The Sweetback Sisters (with whom he appeared on NPR's "A Prairie Home Companion") fellow Philadelphian songstress Birdie Busch, and has toured internationally several times with German-based Joseph Parsons Band since 2008.