About
Jenny Kerr is a third-generation San Franciscan, and it turns up in her music whether she invites it or not. She grew up taking the bus to the Haight when the Haight still meant something, standing in places where Joplin and Hendrix and the Grateful Dead were working it out in front of God and everybody. Her grandmother was a composer and principal violist with the Cleveland Symphony, so Jenny came up around music that was written down and played correctly. She rejected it all in favor of popular roots music, which is another way of saying she went looking for the stuff people actually sing when nobody’s grading them.
Self-taught, she plays clawhammer banjo, dobro, fingerstyle guitar, piano, and harmonica, and she plays all of them like somebody who learned them for a reason and not for a resume.
She spent over a decade in Paris, then two years at Oxford reading comparative literature until she quit the D.Phil because the songs weren’t going to sit around waiting on a degree.
She has toured Europe eleven times and headlined festivals in thirteen countries, twenty-five thousand at Country Rendez-vous, and a hundred thousand over the weekend at Mirande. She’s shared stages with Dr. John, Guy Clark, Dave Alvin, Peter Rowan, and Big Brother & the Holding Company, and blew harmonica with The Third Mind on their Northern California run.
The Girl Who Swallowed the Moon, twelve tracks with the title cut mixed by Bob Rock, is out October 23 on Okey Doke Records. Dave Alvin said this about it, “If you’re a fan of smart, electric roots music, I cannot recommend The Girl Who Swallowed the Moon highly enough.”
Kerr’s musical education began in San Francisco, where she was exposed to the European classical tradition by her grandmother, a composer and the principal violist for the Cleveland Symphony. In her formative teenage years, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Muddy Waters lured her away from the concert hall as she explored the vibrant Bay Area folk, blues and psychedelic rock scene of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
The music of The Haight led her on a journey of discovery of the foundations of Americana – artists such as Mississippi Fred McDowell, Little Walter and Dock Boggs who initially inspired her to pick up guitar, harmonica and banjo.
Kerr and musical partner/producer/guitarist Phil “Philbillie” Milner are the core of a rotating collective of the Bay Area’s top session players, so every live show is fresh and unique, centered around Kerr’s songwriting and vocal delivery and accentuated by some of the finest soloists and support musicians in the business. Milner, a highly sought-after producer and session guitarist, had an extended tenure as guitar tech for Bob Weir & Ratdog as well as Tracy Chapman, Bonnie Raitt and Primus.
Kerr’s previous releases include the critically-acclaimed “Head of Fire,” produced and performed collaboratively with Bill Bottrell (Sheryl Crow, Michael Jackson, George Harrison, Madonna, Tom Petty), and a highly-anticipated, self-produced album is soon to be released on the pair’s independent label, Okey Doke Records.
Kerr is as much at home in the local music scene of Marin County which she now calls home as she is on major festival stages nationally and worldwide, bringing the same power, energy, heart and rootsy soul to every performance.
—Joshua Zucker, SF Chronicle
Jenny Kerr is a gifted songwriter, bringing in the traditions of blues and honky tonk while retaining a singular voice that is honest and strong. Her songs are personal and universal at once, with anthemic stories told simply and well and a balance between vulnerability and ballsy sass. Though backed by a stellar band, Kerr is skilled with a variety of instruments. It is her voice, however, that marks this release a keeper. Thick and rich as delta soil, honed and powerful, Kerr’s voice is an instrument itself, whether making you want to raise the rafters or cry in your beer. Who needs a major label?
—Tamara Bunnell, Country Standard Time