HOT BLUEGRASS & COOL ORIGINALS!

There is a tendency to think of West Coast bluegrass as being softer, jazzier, and somehow “other” than traditional. This can be the case, but there is also a school of bluegrass in Northern California which has, from the beginning, been steeped in Monroe-based tradition—as well as welcoming to women and original songs. The Kathy Kallick Band is a group of musicians born and bred in this traditional brand of West Coast bluegrass. Four of the five are native or long-term Californians, and all have been playing bluegrass professionally since the ’70s. Their music is distinctive and powerful, and brilliantly supportive of the extraordinary songwriting and singing of Kathy Kallick.

THE KATHY KALLICK BAND, formed in 1996, is one of the great bluegrass success stories in recent years. Their first album, Walkin’ In My Shoes, spent most of 1999 in the National Bluegrass Survey’s Top 10—an unprecedented event for a truly independent release—and they have delighted international audiences with their intense and thrilling vocals…dazzling instrumental inventiveness…affecting, inspired material…and inclusive, memorable performances.

• Kathy Kallick: guitar, lead & harmony vocals
• Tom Bekeny: mandolin, fiddle, harmony vocals
• Avram Siegel: banjo, lead guitar, harmony vocals
• Amy Stenberg: acoustic bass, harmony & lead vocals
• Brian Wicklund: fiddle, harmony vocals

The new Kathy Kallick Band album, Warmer Kind Of Blue (Copper Creek Records), is a collection of flat-out bluegrass. It contains eight powerful and evocative Kathy compositions, hot new tunes from Tom and Avram, Amy’s glorious treatments of Jake Landers and Don Gibson songs, tasty fiddling throughout from Brian, and distinctive versions of classic songs learned from Jimmy Martin, the Carter Family, and Hank Williams.

The band has a great time playing this music—as well as selections from their previous album, Kathy’s many wonderful “solo” releases, favorites from the Good Ol’ Persons repertoire, and bluegrass/country classics. Please contact Peter Thompson if you’d like to see the band in your area—or you’d like to present the band.

THE KATHY KALLICK BAND is equally at home at a bluegrass festival, kids show, and folk concert, and band members are experienced at leading workshops and teaching as well as performing. All the musicians in the Kathy Kallick Band are experienced, magnetic performers, and their presentations are as engaging as they are memorable, always based in HOT BLUEGRASS & COOL ORIGINALS.

“Kathy Kallick is a great singer in the bluegrass-country-folk idiom, and the show with her band included plenty of humor, pathos, zippy instrumentals, and country harmonies. And then there were the soaring moments that made me tingle.”
- LONG BEACH PRESS-TELEGRAM

“The Kathy Kallick band’s Walkin’ In My Shoes is hard-driving, bluegrassically exciting, unabashedly traditional, with a wonderful mix of classic bluegrass, fine country tunes, original instrumentals and some killer Kathy Kallick pieces. A stellar showcase for Kathy’s superb vocal talents, arranging abilities, and sublime tunes.

“The highlight of IBMA was provided by the Kathy Kallick Band. It was a band operating in its prime—tight and wonderfully driven—and made for the best music I heard in Louisville.”
- Dave Higgs, WPLN (NASHVILLE)