Take a glance at this week's bluegrass music charts, and you'll find that the Steep Canyon Rangers are keeping company at the top with veteran pickers and players such as Doyle Lawson, The Seldom Scene, Merle Haggard and Rhonda Vincent.

Though the five young men who make up the Rangers Graham Sharp, Woody Platt, Charles R. Humphrey III, Mike Guggino and Nicky Sanders are tasting success in a genre that loves its history and traditions, each considers himself a first-generation bluegrass guy.

"We're all the only people in our families who do bluegrass. It's where we ended up and we're really glad to be here, but it isn't something we were born and raised on," Platt said by phone from his home in Asheville, N.C.

When Platt, Sharp and Humphrey started playing music together as students at the University of North Carolina, they had no final destination in mind.

"At our very earliest stages, we just wanted to play music," Platt said. "Graham was playing banjo and Charles was playing upright bass, so we were steered in that direction pretty quickly. We had a friend of ours who played guitar. He didn't want to classify what we were doing; he just wanted to play music.

"Eventually, with our instrumentation that we had and our musical interests, we did our research and quickly got really into the old Flatt and Scruggs and Jimmy Martin stuff," Platt said. "It didn't take us too long to realize that we were a bluegrass band."

Seven years and five albums later, the Rangers are proud of the impressions left on the audiences at the hundreds of shows they've played. But they're prouder that they know their way around the recording studio.

"We've grown slowly through the process of these records as recording artists and knowing how to get things right in the studio . . . and to know how to hire a producer and ask for help and guidance. . . . We count on having that outside ear, someone who's not heard the songs so many times -- just a fresh perspective."

Singer, songwriter and picker Ronnie Bowman added that perspective on the band's latest, 2007's "Lovin' Pretty Women."

"Ronnie was great. He really knew how to do it. He didn't want to make a Ronnie Bowman record. He wanted to make a Steep Canyon Rangers record. He wanted to get our style of music out. He didn't try to change who were are. We really respected that," Platt said.

The Steep Canyon sound is canyon-deep in tradition, but the Rangers are doing their part to spread the greatness that is bluegrass music by bringing their tunes to venues and audiences that may not hear a whole lot of high lonesome twang.

"We're willing to play bluegrass for anybody," Platt said. "We don't want to play just the traditional bluegrass market. I would say we're focused on the cross-marketing of ourselves, and under that comes growing the popularity of the music."

But Platt insists that the Rangers don't meet the bluegrass definition of road warriors.

Tonight's gig at Ashland Coffee & Tea is just part of "what we call a sustainable schedule," he said.

"We have enough shows that we enjoy to play and have a real national presence. But we also are home enough, because a couple of the guys have young children and I love being home."