Kathy Kallick, Oakland-based vocalist and acoustic guitarist, folds an eclectic array of roots traditions into her work. A founding member who has remained with the gender-bending string band the Good Ol' Persons for more than two decades, a frequent duet partner of Laurie Lewis, and leader of her own ensemble the Little Big Band, she has covered ground stretching from traditional folk and gospel to bluegrass and country. Her second solo release, Call Me a Taxi, constituted her first effort to produce an exclusively bluegrass album and stood in deliberate contrast to her debut, Matters of the Heart, which featured drums, piano, and steel drums. Two children’s projects revealed another dimension of her identity: What Do You Dream About, issued in 1990 and reissued in 1997, and Use Your Napkin (Not Your Mom) from 1995.
Born in Chicago, she spent her childhood in the Evanston suburbs of Illinois. Both parents transmitted a love of music; her father performed on classical guitar and recorder, while her mother, a classical pianist, also played folk guitar and dulcimer and participated in Chicago’s folk scene during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Though she rebelled against those tastes in high school and became a self-described Beatlemaniac, she returned to acoustic traditions at eighteen by acquiring a Martin D-28 and learning traditional repertoire. A year at the Kansas City Art Institute brought a 1970 encounter with a guitar-playing friend who urged her to switch to steel-string instruments.
She refined her craft by performing original material in Chicago folk coffeehouses, occasionally harmonizing with her mother on traditional songs. After departing Chicago she lived for a year in Iowa, accompanying bluegrass fiddlers at local contests, then settled in northern California’s Bay Area in 1973, where the folk circuit had largely gone dormant yet a lively bluegrass community was emerging.
The five women who formed the original Good Ol' Persons first connected at parties and music gatherings. Kallick joined after attending a folk festival with Barbara Mendelsohn, an original member, and harmonizing with her during the drive home. Weekly rehearsals soon lent the group greater seriousness; their first performances took place in February 1975, and their singular brand of roots music quickly drew attention. Although personnel changed repeatedly, the band marked its twentieth anniversary with a November 1995 concert later issued as the live album Good N' Live.
Throughout the 1970s Kallick remained active in the northern California bluegrass world, performing and recording with mandolinist Frank Wakefield and producing albums for High Lonesome while continuing with the Good Ol' Persons. She later rejoined original member Laurie Lewis for the 1991 duo album Together.
In addition to her ongoing work with the current Good Ol' Persons lineup, she tours with the Little Big Band, which features John Reischman on mandolin, Todd Phillips on bass, and Keith Little supplying second lead vocals, banjo, guitar, and fiddle.
