Biography
San Francisco native and Oxford dropout, multi-instrumentalist (finger-style and slide guitar, claw hammer banjo, harmonica, piano), as well as a poetic and passionate songwriter, Jenny Kerr
is known for foot-stomping live shows and powerful, authentic voice. Together with her band of road-tested rogues, she delivers a seasoned yet spirited sound with forays into swamp rock, straight-up soul, backwater honky tonk, and old-time blues and finely-hewn ballads.
Kerr is a 3rd-generation San Francisco native who as a kid used to take the bus over to the Haight-Ashbury district to see the blues and folk revival concerts of the late sixties. Attending shows by the likes of Joplin, Hendrix, and Muddy Waters eventually led her to an older roster of musical discoveries such as Mississippi Fred McDowell, Little Walter and Dock Boggs. It was sometime around then that she began to cast off her classical training (her grandmother, Louise Lincoln Kerr, was first viola player for the Cleveland Symphony and composer of note) and started playing guitar, harmonica and banjo. Today Jenny’s music is steeped in contemporary production values, but informed by the eclecticism particular to that time, stretching the boundaries of genre and style.
Jenny’s producer and longtime guitar player, Phil “Philbillie” Milner, was guitar tech for Bob Weir & Ratdog and traded licks with the likes of Hot Tuna, Los Lobos, Bruce Hornsby’s band and The Black Crows in many a backstage and hotel room jam and also worked for Tracy Chapman, Bonnie Raitt, Primus, Graham Nash, and a few other cool players. He also produces and engineers others’ records, including guitar virtuoso, Eric Mcfadden, whose all-acoustic "Devil Moon" album is a number one pick on CDBaby.com.
Jenny and Phil have finished work on her third release "Head of Fire" whose title track was produced and performed on by the multi-platinum award-winning Bill Bottrell (Sheryl Crow, Michael Jackson, George Harrison, Madonna, Tom Petty). One of the tracks “Blossom in the Dust” was recently awarded ‘Song of the Month’ by BMI. The record is a collection of great songs with literary yet down-to-earth lyrics expressing great empathy for the human condition along with a few visceral blues-rockers.
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