Heather Kenney

North Carolina-based Heather Kenney grew up in a small town in the Uwharrie Mountains where the tradition of folk music and bluegrass was an intrinsic part of the culture. At age 14 she found her dad’s old guitar in the attic and felt an immediate kinship to the instrument. She quickly took to other string instruments, picking up banjo and ukulele while developing her own unique way of playing guitar with metal finger picks, often associated with the banjo, turning them around backwards so she can execute intricate fingerpicking and solid percussive strumming simultaneously. 

“I’d always played music for myself, to process my emotions and life,” Kenney reflects, affirming that it was never her intent to push her music outside of her inner circle. But after she began sharing her original tunes at gigs, comparisons to Alison Krauss became commonplace and others were adamant her angelic folk pop was destined to travel outside of NC. Heather's songs often have a folksy twist, inspired by bluegrass musicians like her grandfather, who taught her how to play her first song on guitar and how to pick a banjo.  

Heather’s debut EP album Waltz (7/28/2017) melds acoustic guitar, banjo and ukulele to create warm, folk-inspired songs, unified by a 3/4 time signature.  The album "delves into the kind of crystalline folk depths that artists such as Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss have spent so many years wandering through and adapting."  (Joshua Pickard, Nooga.com).  The album includes the award winning songs Whole Life of You (winner of the Backwoods Beat Music Festival Songwriting Contest, honorable mention in the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest) and Real World (winner of the WHIW Songwriting Contest).  Waltz is available for free download at heatherkenney.bandcamp.com.