Annie Gallup, a singer and songwriter working in contemporary folk, grew up in Seattle, Washington. As a teenager she acquired guitar technique through self-instruction, absorbing the approaches of Doc Watson, Mississippi John Hurt, and Dave Van Ronk while shaping her own fingerpicking method. Original material soon emerged under additional influences from Paul Simon and authors Margaret Atwood and Joan Didion, prompting her first local performances before audiences in 1988. Her initial tracks appeared on compact disc via multi-artist anthologies such as Whirled Records’ Acoustic Sampler and Victory Music’s A Victory for Kids in the opening years of the 1990s. Beginning in 1994 she maintained a steady schedule of solo albums, opening with Cause and Effect on her own Flying Hair imprint before relocating to New York’s 1-800 Prime label for Backbone in 1996, Courage My Love in 1998, Steady Steady Yes in 1999, and Swerve in 2001. Roadwork occupies much of her time, occasionally extending to ten months each year, and she has accumulated songwriting distinctions that include the 1994 Telluride Troubadour Contest in Telluride, Colorado, finalist placement at the 1992 Columbia Music Festival in Spokane, Washington, and an honorable mention at the 1993 Napa Valley Music Festival in Napa, California.
