Out on the cattle ranches of Wyoming, you’ll find that campfires, cowgirls, and genuine singer-songwriters do still exist. You can find one example within the music of Kerry Wallace. Wallace has lived a life where raising livestock and managing crops are daily tasks. These experiences continuously shape the “country-fried” compositions she cooks up. Her secret ingredients include a little folk, mixed with a touch of bluegrass and Americana. So, gather around, stoke the fire, Kerry Wallace is cooking her recipe for tasty, traditional country music and it’s delicious!
“So much of life happens here right on my back porch! Smelling the rain, feeling the sunshine, watching stars, or cleaning my work boots,” Wallace explains. The characters and stories in her songs come to life with the help of her old six string, pen, and pad of paper. Wallace is the very epitome of genuine artistry and music.
Kerry’s musical identity began within her family – which remains a driving force in her music today as it was in her youth. Her mother was a pianist; her father played guitar. Singing together almost daily with her musical siblings, the sound of folk and country surrounded her. Kerry offers, “We had nightly family jams where even my grandpa would join in.” Kerry was trained classically in piano and music theory. She taught herself how to play the guitar by the age of eight, and it eventually became her favorite instrument.
Kerry’s influences are as far reaching; she spent hours strumming along to the albums of artists such as Tanya Tucker, James Taylor, and Emmylou Harris. By the age of fifteen, she was performing as a solo act in coffeehouses, pubs, and with a folk group in New Mexico. In her twenties, she did live gigs in New Mexico and Colorado in a duo called Brown & Thomas. To this day, Wallace continues to gig and tour with a live band, from Wyoming and Montana to South Dakota and in cities such as Fort Worth, and Nashville.
While she now calls Wyoming home, Kerry grew up in the rural Rocky Mountains and has lived in spots from New Mexico to Montana. She explains, “Each place I lived was a source of inspiration.” Wallace has a knack for taking all the different people, weather, culture, and traditions to form the creative ideas and themes she bakes into her compositions.
Kerry spent two decades riding the Wyoming range, meeting ranchers and absorbing their wisdom and stories. It was then that her father and said they wished she would record an album. Upon their urging, in 2013, Kerry released her debut album, Songs to Sing and Tales to Tell. The project was an intensely personal journey including eight covers, two traditional selections, and four originals. Wallace wrote three of the originals; “Cold Wind Blowin,” “Love Rains Down,” and “Alone Again.”
Her second album, Winter Left a Rose was completed in 2014 and garnered Kerry five separate nominations from both the Josie Music Awards and the Academy of Western Artists. The compositions on Winter Left a Rose include Wallace’s originals she composed such as, “Winter Left a Rose,” “Memories of Mama,” and “An Old Picture Show.” The project gave her not only an increase in exposure and airplay yet also vital contacts in the music industry.
Kerry Wallace’s latest album, If We Knew, is her third full-length release. It contains three originals penned by Wallace, along with several cover songs by the likes of Gordon Lightfoot, Tom T. Hall and others. There are two gorgeous duets which include Richard Lynch and Arlene Faith. Wallace wrote the title track as well as “The Ballad of Bertie Brown” and “Home in my Mind.”
If We Knew earned numerous award nominations before it even began production. Wallace was nominated a second straight year for awards from the Academy of Western Artists. She attended the AWA awards in March of 2016 and the Josie Music Awards in September of 2016. The singles released so far to radio from If We Knew include Kerry’s original song, “The Ballad of Bertie Brown.” The song is a ditty with deep meaning intertwined with an inherent Old West Wisdom.
Everyone’s life is a story. Kerry Wallace has spent her lifetime gathering and interpreting those experiences. They are the very ingredients of a genuine recipe for traditional country music. Gather around Kerry’s rural Wyoming homestead each evening. She is serving a tasty tune each evening … right off her back porch.
