Singer/s0ngwriter, Kelly Hunt's voice, has been described by Rolling Stone Country as having the "lilting cadance of a folksinger born somewhere far away, sometime long ago."
The artist, who grew up with an opera singer and saxophonist for parents in Memphis, Tennessee, is now based in Kansas City. She takes a unique approach to banjo playing, and she'll be in concert Wednesday night (10/16) at 7 at The Riff, 1900 W. Sunset in Springfield.
You style is described as folk/Americana, and you take a unique approach to the banjo, an instrument you didn't take up until college at Notre Dame where you majored in French and Visual Arts. Why the banjo?
"I ask myself that, too. It's kind of mysterious, but I do have an uncle who lives in Mountain View, Arkansas, a big folk music capitol of the country, really, and he plays bluegrass banjo, and that was the first time I really remembered seeing a banjo in action was seeing him play with a bunch of his friends in Mountain View. And I was just struck by its voice--by how distinctive it was and how it had so much character, and so it kind of planted some seeds and then within the next couple of years I just had this really strong desire to get a banjo and start learning on it, and so I did. There's a lot of elements of bluegrass and country in my music, but I'm not a Skruggs-style bluegrass picker. But that's what got me started on the instrument, and I just kind of taught myself and letting my use of banjo be shaped by the songs I was writing, so that's how it all began, I guess."
So you're self taught?
"I have a background in music. I grew up in a household just steeped in music, and piano is my first instrument. That's the instrument, really, that I took lessons on growing up, and I always sang--sang in choir, and my mom studied vocal performance and opera, so there was a lot of that in the household, and I was writing from a young age, but...when I started playing banjo, it just clicked with the type of music I was wanting to write. It was just a good fit--a good fit for my voice, a good fit for my songs, and everything kind of gelled at that point."
How would you describe your unique style of banjo playing for those who haven't heard it and might want to come see you play tonight?
"It's a blend of three-fingered picking. I play a tenor banjo, a four-string 1920s tenor banjo, and then I also play a five-string, so three-fingered picking on that and then also some claw hammer, old-time style. Claw hammer--much more rhythmic, kind of like railroad rhythm, that driving rhythm, and then also some improvised that combines strumming and picking at the same time and then also tapping on the drum head of the banjo because because it's really a drum--it's an African instrument by origin--so just really pulling out those rhythms both in the drum head beat and then also with the strumming and then also picking melody notes out at the same time so sort of incorporating all those different styles into one movement. And that's just something I've kind of developed just with writing songs and knowing what I wanted to be able to execute to fill in the song the way I wanted to rhythmically and then figuring out how to do that. That's the beauty of being self taught, I think, is that you just kind of innovate without thinking about it too hard."
What influences/experiences did you draw upon when writing the songs for your new album, "Even the Sparrow?"
"This is my debut album so I think of it as my origin story musically. It's very much steeped in sort of the imagery of my home--I'm from Tennessee originally--and all of the musical influences that I had growing up, which sounds really disparate, but it all kind of comes together in a way that makes sense to me, but I grew up around a lot of classical music. There's an element of that but then old school folk and contemporary folk, and Gillian Welch is probably the contemporary folk writer that has made the greatest impact on my writing. And then grew up listening to Joni Mitchell and John Denver and James Taylor and Bob Dylan and all those guys, too, and Doc Watson and also growing up on sort of the blues belt so love Mississippi John Hurt and just kind of an amalgomation of all those different styles and so, yeah, the album is some solo stuff, just me and banjo, some duo stuff with Stas' Heaney who produced the album with me and is on tour with me--plays primarily violin with me and then some folk band numbers as well that kind of just brings out a different dimension to the songs."
You didn't immediately pursue a music career when you graduated college. Tell me about the path that led you here.
"Music was always a part of my life, but I definitely had it on the back burner for many years, and after I graduated college I just pursued a lot of different paths. I moved to New York and did farming for awhile and got into the culinary arts, especially French bread making and that took me to east Tennessee where I worked at Blackberry Farm and did bread making and pastry arts there and kind of briefly entertained pursuing medicine and was just kind of all over the map for a few years and then moved to Kansas City four and a half years ago for a job in graphic design, which, like you said, my background is really in visual arts, so I thought, 'well, maybe I want to pursue something with visual arts,' and then moved to Kansas City and just kind of discovered this amazing folk/Americana music scene that I had no idea existed here, and so that really kind of lit a fire under me, and opportunities started presenting themselves to take some gigs and record a demo, and one thing led to the next, so I'm just really grateful for that, and we've been kind of touring regionally for the past few years, and making the album, and since July I have been on the road touring in support of that. So, that's been wonderful, and just a great musical community in this area, and Springfield is very much a part of that, so, yeah, it's exciting."
