Hailing from the province of New Brunswick, on the east coast of Canada, Russell Sawler has been playing and teaching 5-string banjo for over 25 years. A long time disciple of the playing style of J.D. Crowe, he has spent countless hours studying and transcribing J.D.'s solos and backup. He is often referred to as the "Crowe guy".

"Every banjo player can learn something from Russell Sawler's "J.D. Crowe Classic Solos" tab book, and I highly recommend this valuable work for players of all styles and levels of experience."

Greg Cahill, Banjo Newsletter June 2005.

"Russell Sawler a great banjo player, friend and teaching colleague transcribed one of my songs with 100% accuracy and I hired him to transcribe selected videos and recordings of mine. His ability to transcribe these improvised songs and his mastery of the tabledit program is very impressive." Ross Nickerson

"I've had a lot of folks wondering when the tabs for "The Boxcars" cd will be ready, and they will up for sale on www.ronniestewart.com Monday November 7th. Russell Sawler transcribed the tabs himself, who is an amazing banjo picker and also has done a bunch of tabs on JD Crowe, and he is as good as it gets. You can also find these tabs on his website, www.bluegrassoutlet.com as well as the JD Crowe tabs. We are doing a book as well for these that should be available in Decemeber we hope, and that will be for sale at concerts, and on mine and Russell's websites. The downloadable tabs will be $25.00 and the book $30.00. These tabs are each song in it's entirety, breaks and backup. Thanks to all of you who have purchased my earlier tabs! " Ron Stewart