Bridget Kearney

Multi-instrumentalist Bridget Kearney has assembled a diverse catalog shaped by funk, R&B, vintage soul, jazz, pop, and world music. Although she first gained notice as the bassist in the retro-soul outfit Lake Street Dive, she has also partnered with numerous other artists and issued recordings under her own name. While her supple, groove-oriented bass lines remain central to Lake Street Dive’s identity, her debut solo album, 2017’s Won’t Let You Down, highlighted her vocal abilities and allowed her to compose material spanning pop, rock, and soul. The 2020 joint project Still Flying with Benjamin Lazar Davis emerged as a buoyant, rhythm-focused endeavor that fused electronic textures and dance beats with melodic lines drawn from West African sources. In 2024 she presented her gift for concise, word-smart melodic pop on the Dan Molad-produced Comeback Kid.

Kearney entered the world in Iowa City, Iowa, on June 10, 1985. Her earliest musical exposure arrived through participation in the youth choir at the Lutheran church her family attended. Piano lessons began at age five, and by fourth grade she had taken up the double bass. That instrument soon became her primary focus; throughout high school she performed in both orchestra and jazz band while also appearing with a local rock ensemble. After graduation she pursued jazz studies at the New England Conservatory of Music and simultaneously enrolled at Tufts University as an English major. During her conservatory years she played in several ensembles, among them the roots-oriented indie-pop group Joy Kills Sorrow (two albums, 2010 and 2011), the experimental folk-pop collective Cuddle Magic (three albums between 2007 and 2011), and the Fundies, a project that also included vocalist and songwriter Margaret Glaspy (EP released in 2012). The ensemble that would become her most visible outlet, Lake Street Dive, originated during her second year at NECM. Founded in 2004, the band issued its first album, In This Episode, in 2007 and had completed six full-length releases by 2018, two of them—Side Pony and Free Yourself Up—appearing on Nonesuch Records.

Outside Lake Street Dive’s schedule, Kearney contributed songs to Margaret Glaspy’s solo work and recorded with banjoist Bill Evans and the contemporary folk duo the Brother Brothers. In 2015 she reunited with former Cuddle Magic colleague Benjamin Lazar Davis, who has since collaborated with Joan as Police Woman and Okkervil River, to record the EP BAWA in Ghana, a project that reflected their shared interest in African musical traditions. Her first proper solo album, Won’t Let You Down, arrived in 2017 and featured Kearney on bass, guitar, and keyboards in addition to lead vocals. A second collaboration with Davis, Still Flying, appeared in 2020; like its predecessor it was tracked in Ghana with portable equipment and included performances by kologo virtuoso Stevo Atambire.

In 2021 Kearney joined the faculty at Princeton University as a songwriting instructor. While there she joined a song-a-day workshop whose momentum eventually drew her back into the studio. March 2024 saw the release of Comeback Kid, produced by Dan Molad, which foregrounded her skill at crafting wry, literate melodic pop.