North Carolina’s Avett Brothers are a known quantity for music fans from Charlotte to San Francisco. Their distinctive sound — an anarchic amalgam of bluegrass, Americana and rock; their outstanding songwriting; and their highly combustible live performances have made the trio an unlikely sensation.

The silent partner in the continuing success of The Avett Brothers is Dolph Ramseur, founder of Ramseur Records. He’s the indefatigable indie label owner, as much the architect of The Avett Brothers rise to prominence as the Avetts themselves.

Ramseur is a native of North Carolina, born and raised in Con­cord. He was a young tennis whiz, which eventually led him to enroll at Ferris State Uni­versity in Michigan.

“I graduated from Ferris State in 1991,” Ramseur said during a recent conversation. “I worked in country clubs in Florida and Kentucky and North Carol­ina, but I’m back in my hometown now.

“I was a tennis pro,” he noted. “Ferris State is like a trade school. They’ve got the best pharmacy program in the country. They also have four-year golf and tennis programs, like a marketing degree with a minor in pro­fessional tennis management.”

Asked how music managed to intrude on his tennis playing, Ramseur explained that he has always been a true music fanatic.

“I grew up about 10 miles from Davidson College, and they used to have a great college radio station,” he recalled. “In the evenings they’d play all forms of music, from alternative stuff to acoustic. It was great, but sadly the Charlotte region doesn’t have any radio like that anymore.”

Ramseur was tuned in to Davidson’s student station from the time he was 11 years old. He noted he also benefited from his father’s taste in music, which ran from Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison to The Platters and Pavarotti.

“I got into Piedmont blues when I was about 12 years old,” he said. “I found it fascinating that music from the North Carolina Piedmont could be such an influence on the whole world.

“There was a station at UNC-Charlotte that had a Piedmont blues show, and I spent about six years staying home on Fridays or Saturdays just to hear that show. So I had that Davidson station, which was playing a lot of stuff like Sex Pistols and Dead Kennedys, and I had this UNC-C station playing Piedmont blues.”

Ramseur went on to explain that when he was playing tennis tournaments as a teenager, he traveled all over the US, which provided the opportunity to discover great record stores from coast to coast.

“The best record store I ever visited was in Grand Rapids, MI,” he said. “I think it was called Vinyl Solution. That place was unbelievable. I don’t know if it’s still open. [It is, sort of. It’s been reincarnated as Vertigo Music.]”

Ramseur’s transition from tennis pro to record label owner was a move that featured a few interludes, but he eventually landed where he clearly belongs.

“I never had any dreams of being in the music business,” he said. “I’m a music fan, first and foremost. I just love music. I love most forms of music, and I study it. I can talk to anybody about music. That quality has served me well.

“I’ve met quite a few people in the music industry who aren’t really music fans. I think that’s one reason why the industry is so screwed up. You’ve got to remember that music is an art form, and when you put too much business into it — when you start thinking about it with your billfold — it messes things up.”

While still working at a country club, Ramseur made a connection that led him to a tentative involvement in the music business.

“I was a big fan of a guy named Martin Stephenson, an English singer-songwriter,” he explained. “I ordered some CDs from him. He was on Lon­don Records and Cap­itol Records at one time. He decided to do his own thing, however, and I had to order the albums directly from him. When he noticed that I was from North Carolina, he wrote back to me saying he was a big Charlie Poole and Doc Watson and Pied­mont blues fan. We started a correspondence; I’d send him rare recordings, like Piedmont stuff, and we developed a rapport. Next thing I know — in 1999 — I’m organizing a little tour for him, which happened in July 2000, so he could get over to North Carolina and meet a lot of roots musicians. That was how I got started in the music business.”

When Ramseur did leave tennis, it was to work in venture capital with his father-in-law. He pursued this line of work between 1999 and 2003, but the capital venture ended with the death of his father-in-law.

“During that time between 1999 and 2003, I was getting deeper into the music business,” Ramseur recalled. “I’d brought Martin Stephenson over here, and I was working with a guy from Mount Holly, NC, named David Childers, and I put out a couple records with him.

“I learned a good deal from working with Childers and Martin Stephenson. He’d been on major labels. He was a good influence.”

Ramseur’s experience working with Stephenson and Childers was timely, since his initial encounter with The Avett Brothers was in his immediate future.

“I met The Avett Brothers in 2002 and put out a record with them in 2003 [A Carolina Jubilee], and right when we released that record my father-in-law died,” he said. “So I was out of a job, and I decided to pursue music full time. I was moving furniture just to make ends meet. It’s been a struggle, but I was in a sink or swim situation.”

Fortunately for Ramseur, his mother intervened. She showed him a newspaper article about The Avett Brothers characterizing the band as bluegrassers. Ramseur wasn’t a particular fan of bluegrass, but then Eric Lovell, who played guitar with Childers, informed Ramseur that he should catch The Avett Brothers in action.

“He said they were totally unique, that they’d play out of tune and sing off key, but the spirit and the heart of it was real and honest, and they were great songwriters,” Ramseur recalled. “So I went to see them up in Charlotte. They were playing at The Wine Vault, outside on this little patio. There were a couple hundred people there, really enjoying themselves. At the time the brothers were playing about 60 percent bluegrass, old-timey folk tunes and about 40 percent of their material was original and that’s what really struck me. I knew that they had something. They had the crowd in the palm of their hand; they were entertainers; they had some serious charisma.

“I let Scott Avett know right then that I’d really like to put out a record with them,” he continued. “Everybody sees the success of The Avett Brothers now, but it was a big challenge in the beginning. I’ve been told ‘no’ so much that it doesn’t even affect me anymore. A lot of people wouldn’t give them a chance, but I believed in them 100 percent. I made sure that anyone who told me no eventually came around to my viewpoint or had to eat their words.”

In reflecting on the Ramseur Records/ Avett Brothers story from then to now, Ramseur remarked: “When my father-in-law died and I was trying to make music a full-time thing, I had to take some odd jobs, like moving furniture for instance, and didn’t have the nerve to tell the guys that I was moving furniture. I mean, I was their record label, their manager and their booking agent.

“I remember Scott [Avett] called me one day and I was huffing and puffing, and he asked me what I was doing. I told him I was moving furniture just to put food on the table. Scott said that hearing that got him fired up. He said, ‘We’re gonna make it. We’re gonna do whatever we’ve gotta do to make it.’ I knew then that they were good people.”

Check out Ramseur Records artists online at: www.ramseurrecords.net.

DISCOLOLGY

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette, My Foolish Heart (ECM)

This monumental jazz trio was recorded on stage at the 2001 Montreux Jazz Festival. Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette all played with Miles Davis at one time or another, and the album opens with a Miles tune, “Four.” The performance is superb. Jarrett is, of course, an astonishing solo improvisational pianist, but he combines fabulously with DeJohnette and Peacock. DeJohnette is arguably the best drummer in jazz today, and Peacock is absolutely on par with the likes of Ron Carter and Dave Holland. For a sample of what’s in store on this double CD, cue up the title track. Peacock assays a bass solo that’s as expressive and fluid as Jarrett’s beautifully phrased piano.