BIO
Armed with a banjo, guitar and amplified stompbox, Oregonian-turned-New Yorker Kelleigh McKenzie (pronounced "Kelly") has a way of mixing folk, blues, old-time and rock into a music all her own. With a whimsical voice and soaring melodies, she takes the well-worn roads of Americana to unexpected places, thumping and plucking out original tales that veer effortlessly from a graceful social consciousness to lusty romps and sinister seductions. Kelleigh's acclaimed debut album Chances was recently released nationally and her song "Gin" won the 2009 Independent Music Award (IMA) for Best Americana Song. She received two additional IMA nominations (Best Americana Album and Best Cover Song for "Eleanor Rigby") and was named a winner in last year's Mountain Stage NewSong Contest.
After years of writing and performing for a small circle of friends and fans in upstate New York, Kelleigh and her partner, musician and co-producer Jeff Michne, decided to record a few of her songs for the fun of it and to "see what would happen." They enlisted Grammy-nominated engineer/bassist Scott Petito (Rory Block, James Taylor) to record and play on the project and Dan Hickey (Rickie Lee Jones, They Might Be Giants) to add drums on a few tracks. In July of 2008 they celebrated the completion of Chances with a party in Woodstock, garnering accolades from local press, and then they put it up for sale online at CD Baby and iTunes and started sending out copies to folks in the music industry.
Within six months, Kelleigh was performing on NPR's "Mountain Stage." Songs from Chances went into rotation at radio stations across the country and spent 24 weeks on the Americana Music Chart, getting over 2500 spins and peaking at #59. She was invited to showcase at regional and international folk conferences and began opening shows for national artists at some of the nation's premier listening rooms. Called "a major talent" by Tony Trischka, Kelleigh is busy writing songs for her next record and bringing her captivating solo acoustic show to new audiences.