Bio

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area, Rob Ickes (rhymes with “bikes”) comes from a musical family. His grandparents played old-time fiddle music, and Rob trained his young musical ear at their weekly jam sessions. Although his family wanted Rob to play fiddle, the instrument didn’t interest him. Then, at the age of thirteen, Rob was exposed to the Dobro playing of Mike Auldridge, and the sound immediately caught his attention. Soon after, Rob got his first Dobro, and he has been playing music ever since.

Rob moved to Nashville in 1992 and in 1994 became a founding member of  “Blue Highway,” the highly esteemed bluegrass band. He is recognized as one of the most innovative Dobro players on the scene today, contributing signature technique and greatly expanding the boundaries of the instrument’s sonic and stylistic territory. He won the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Dobro Player of the Year award for a record-setting fifteenth time in 2013; IBMA notes that he is the most awarded instrumentalist in the history of the IBMA awards with 39 awards in various categories.

As an active session player and touring musician, he has collaborated with a wide range of musicians, including Merle Haggard, Darrell Scott, Earl Scruggs, Tony Rice, Tommy Emmanuel, David Grisman, Alison Krauss, Willie Nelson, David Lee Roth, Dolly Parton, Patty Loveless, Peter Rowan, Jorma Kaukonen, Hot Tuna, and Mary Chapin Carpenter.

The youngest dobro player on The Great Dobro Sessions (Jerry Douglas & Tut Taylor, producers), which won the 1994 Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, he was also on the Alison Krauss & The Cox Family album, I Know Who Holds Tomorrow, which won the 1994 Grammy for Best Southern Gospel. His most recent solo release is a dobro-piano jazz album, Road Song (ResoRevolution 2009); he has also released four acclaimed solo albums on Rounder, eight albums with Blue Highway (Rounder, Ceili, Rebel) and 2 CD’s with acclaimed instrumental group “Three Ring Circle,” comprised of Rob, Andy Leftwich and Dave Pomeroy

He was also named the USA Peter Cummings Fellow in 2010 by United States Artists, an organization that annually honors 50 of America’s finest artists across eight disciplines.

In 2011 Rob was the first and only Dobro player to be featured on the cover of Guitar Player Magazine.

In 2014, Ickes was featured on an album with fellow Dobro greats Jerry Douglas and Mike Auldridge, titled Three Bells. This album was nominated for a Grammy in 2015.

In 2015 Rob left Blue Highway to pursue other musical projects. Rob’s project with singer/guitarist Trey Hensley started full time in 2016, the duo has performed throughout the US, Europe and Australia. Their first recording, “Before the Sun Goes Down,” was nominated for a Grammy in 2016.

The duo won a Grammy in the “Traditional Blues” category for their work with Taj Mahal in 2025 on the album “Swingin’ Live at the Church in Tulsa.”

Rob is also a gifted resonator guitar teacher; in 2007, he founded ResoSummit, a three-day annual instructional event in Nashville, featuring leading Dobro players and luthiers as faculty.

In 2019, Ickes began offering video instruction at www.BigMusicTent.com, an online music lessons platform. He uploads regular videos and interacts with Dobro students on his dedicated learning page, “Rob’s Reso Room.”