Ron Spears

Thanks to Richard Thompson for the sad news of the death of Ron Spears (right) yesterday morning, from cancer. Ron came to Ireland in January 2007 as mandolin player with the Special Consensus (see picture below and the BIB for 10 Dec. 2006), but he was then already a man of many talents - singer, songwriter, leader of his own band Within Tradition, multi-instrumentalist, and (as the Facebook page for one of his side ventures put it) 'comedian, ventriloquist, and yo-yo man'. Ron's CV is outlined in Bluegrass Bios. His friends and colleagues in Fast Track have posted a moving tribute on their Facebook:

With our saddened hearts, we want to let everyone know that Ron Spears, a founding member, bass player and songwriter for Fast Track has finished his earthly journey this morning. Ron battled cancer and all of the complications which came after this surgery in 2022 like a true superhero. He is by far the toughest person we have ever known and his absence will forever leave an impact on each of us. Thank you for the years of shotgun riding, laughing, arguing, Taco Bell eating, pickin, singing and thank you most of all for being our brother. We love you Ron Spears.

The BIB's deepest sympathies go out to Ron's wife Brenda.

Update 25 Mar.: See Richard Thompson's full obituary of Ron on Bluegrass Today.

The Special Consensus, 2006-7: (l-r) Ron, Greg Cahill, David Thomas, Justin Carbone

© Richard Hawkins