From the Spirit of ’76 Road Trip to Washington DC
Ikons & Images from my recent live medicine show on the “Capital Americana Series” @ Gypsy Sally’s club in Georgetown, Washington DC:
Civil Rights Movement legends & fellow travelers in power @ my show: Joyce Ladner, Philippa Thompson Jackson, Ed Darden, Juadine Henderson, Jacqueline Trescott, Courtland Cox, Judy Richardson
Hudson Canyon Sing
My debut Medicine Show ft. the Spirit of ’76, Tess Reese of Treasury & Evan Taylor – photograph by Tavia Nyong’O
Yesterday, Sunday 9 August @ Branded Saloon, Brooklyn
Live in Washington DC on 8/13
Come check me out & hear some Chocolate City / #DMV -born country & western sounds!
All the way live…on the Capital Americana Series @ Gypsy Sally’s Georgetown
Hudson Canyon Sing this Sunday 8/9 in Brooklyn
At long last, I am bringing the twangtent of the dear departed Harlem Honky-Tonk to Brooklyn Country, Sisters & Brothers, for Branded Saloon’s Honky-Tonk’n Roundup in Prospect Heights: the Hudson Canyon Sing ft. myself, the Spirit of ’76 & special guest Evan Taylor (Bernie Worrell Orchestra, Chapin Sisters). C’mon out & support if you can, NYC / NJ / CT, so we can make this a regular thang!
Branded Saloon @ 603 Vanderbilt Avenue and Bergen Street, Brooklyn NY | 2-4pm
Kandia Crazy Horse
Evan Taylor
My DC live debut on 8/13
Bringing it back where Kandia Crazy Horse Country began: Of the two shows I have upcoming to kickoff August & the last stretch of summer, very excited to be making my live debut playing in my old hometown of Washington, DC. I will be doing 2 sets of my Cosmic American Music on the “Capital Americana Series” @ Georgetown’s Gypsy Sally’s club, on Thursday, 13 August @ 7pm. More details here: http://www.gypsysallys.com/event/874175-kandia-crazy-horse-vinyl-washington/
If yer in the DC / Maryland / Virginia area, we would love to see y’all out at the twangshow!!
Dancing in the Streets in the New York Post
Saturday’s New York Post article on musical public events at NYC’s museums features a photograph of me dancing on the patio at the Museum of the City of New York: http://nypost.com/2015/08/01/%E2%80%8Bwhere-to-look-at-art-and-get-drunk/ Here I am @ Uptown Bounce — which also included bugalu @ Museo del Barrio — getting down to grown-N-sexy jams courtesy of Grandmaster Caz on the 1s & 2s. I also saw the Folk City exhibit & one of my Gilded Age favorites’ Florine Stettheimer’s dollhouse inside. Y’all never know where in Kandia Crazy Horse Country you might find me!
NEW YORK – JULY 29: For Pulse, Bounce at the Museum of the City of New York. People enjoy the sounds of DJ Caz.(photo by Tamara Beckwith/NY POST)
Kandia Crazy Horse debut @ Brooklyn’s Branded Saloon for Independence Day – July 3rd
When I hit the town again, it will be to play my first show at the Branded Saloon in Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights ‘hood. For all y’all of the NY / NJ / CT area that are having a “staycation” instead of roadrunning for this 4th of July holiday, come celebrate with your family and friends in Kandia Crazy Horse Country!!!
We shall be singing Songs of Freedom, sho’nuff, this Friday night in NYC >>>—–> #KandiaCrazyHorse #Stampede #BrandedSaloon
Post-FarmBorough Festival thoughts…
Greetings from the Red Road & the Southland!
What has been billed as New York’s first country music festival, FarmBorough, came & went with much fanfare; but, as a proud member of the local New York City country scene that was (blatantly?) overlooked on their bills in favor of superstars straight from Music Row and assorted carpetbaggers, we played our own show in Brooklyn Country Thursday night — thanks to all who came out & raised a ruckus with us @ the honky-tonk!! — and I subsequently hit 95 South to find much-needed sonic & spiritual renewal in the Beautiful South.
En route to the Dixieline, I have sung country soul classics with Greg Tate’s Burnt Sugar Arkestra — including my co-pilot Little Miss Cornshucks’ “Try A Little Tenderness” — and 1960s Freedom Songs alongside my Southwest Georgia kinswoman & SNCC Elder Bernice Johnson Reagon @ Chocolate City’s Metropolitan AME Church, as well as celebrated Peruvian music/culture @ this year’s Folklife Festival. Also took the time to see my former culture-crit colleague Gayle Wald (GWU scholar) give a talk on her latest tome @ Politics And Prose — it’s about my former Schomburg Center colleague & great black queer maverick son of Washington, Mr. Ellis Haizlip, and the landmark 1960s-70s variety show he hosted for PBS, Soul!, which featured such country/folk acts as my fellow Virginian Bill Withers and Taj Mahal giving me the seed to ultimately sing & write country music (Check out Soul! and Black Power Television also for renowned photographer Chester Higgins’ shots from the production).
Canada’s Toronto-based National Post features a very abbreviated take on my views about the current Confederate battle flag furor & the state of country music. And in my southern retreat new songs are now jumpin’ off the page and the Road, including a meditation on the famous post-bellum black stringband family, the Snowdens, who some historians credit with teaching “Dixie” to Dan Emmett Rice. I am undergoing a renaissance of focus on the myriad unknown black country musicians and songwriters who populated weekend frolics across the South and into the Midwest between the Civil War & the Second World War — fitting since America as a whole (not just Sistah Bree Newsome) seems arrested in that era yet again these days. Expecting to fly sometime in the Afrofuture with a vintage Virginian harp-guitar!
Standing strong @ 1&2 Logan Circle in Chocolate City, next to a heritage trail image of my dear departed friend Brotha Gil Scott-Heron & (my Georgia cousin according to him) Brian Jackson. They wrote some genius songs upon this very stoop during the 1970s while resident in the adjacent Shaw neighborhood. (ph.: Camara Dia Holloway)
Covered by Dead Flowers blog
Here’s a nice new write-up about my music & vision from the artist-centric Dead Flowers blog – also previewing our Honky-Tonk Relapse appearance this Thursday night in Brooklyn: READ HERE
When you hear the words “classic country music”, a few famous faces come to mind—all of them, most likely, white and male. But Kandia Crazy Horse is out to change all that. The NYC-based singer and songwriter is “on a crusade to become the first black woman to be invited to join the Grand Ole Opry.”And the way she sings — with a style that’s part deep-South traditional country, part soul, and more than a little influenced by the crossover twang-rock of ’70s California — she just might pull it off
Yes! I hope to see y’all out @ Hank’s Saloon!
Come see me on the Honky-Tonk Relapse in Brooklyn next Thursday, 6/25!
Tis’ the season for twang, I reckon: I’ve been invited as a special guest opener for Uncle Leon’s Honky-Tonk Relapse @ Brooklyn’s venerable, long-lived honky-tonk Hank’s Saloon. “Uncle” Leon Chase hosts this weekly event & runs BrooklynCountry.com, a great fellow artist & strong supporter of NYC’s local country scene. I’ll be bringing my own patented mountain music/Laurel Canyon-inspired sound to Hank’s, as well as some surprise takes on classic country. So do come through for my last show of #BlackMusicMonth & first venture into Brooklyn Country!
Hank’s Saloon is at: 46 3rd Avenue, btwn Pacific St & Atlantic Avenue, Boerum Hil Brooklyn, NY (steps away from the Atlantic Terminal & the Barclay’s Center)
We’ve been having a great weekend of Juneteenth celebrations in Harlem & Central Park courtesy of Oakland artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s Black Joy In the Hour of Chaos installations & the related salon hosted by Harlem Stage here in NYC. Hope your own Juneteenth Festivals across America have been grand!!
Live in SoHo NYC Tonight, Stay tuned for Staten Island
Happy Summer Solstice & Father’s Day everybody! Sadly, due to scheduling conflicts, I am not performing at the Staten Island Museum in St. George this afternoon for Make Music New York. However, we will be rescheduling a program there in tandem with the Museum’s current exhibition of Civil War tintypes upcoming. Check-in for updates; meanwhile, here’s the write-up from the Staten Island Advance: NYC’s most musical weekend
See y’all this evening @ Gallery LaLa, 138 Sullivan Street, 6:30pm NYC – We shall be twangin’ the season of renewal!
Live @ Gallery LaLa NYC – June 21
I will be playing a show on the Summer Solstice in SoHo at the Gallery La La: 138 Sullivan Street near West Houston, $10 cover
We will be providing a unique take on country music for Black Music Month
New York City area folks – Come join us at 6:30pm next Sunday evening!
Live in NYC this Friday!
I am having a bit o’ twangshow this Friday night, April 3rd @ 8pm; Downtown on the LES at Leftfield on Ludlow, courtesy of Turnstyle Music Group’s series. Hope to see y’all out, as we try to scoot our cowboy/girl boots into some Spring-like vibes & good weather at last!
Info/tix link: http://brooklyncountry.com/events/kandia-crazy-horse/
There will be some pickin’ & some grinnin’ reflecting my favorite show from childhood, HEE HAW
My Lincoln Center debut on March 12
Sisters & Brothers, I am kicking off my sonic year by performing as a featured guest vocalist with my fellow Village Voice alum Greg Tate’s Sun Ra-and-Butch Morris-inspired big band, Burnt Sugar Arkestra. I shall be singing Buckingham-Nicks and Fleetwood Mac gems at Lincoln Center’s Rubenstein space on Thursday, 12 March @ 7:30pm. Among my fellow performers are my old friend, the Grammy-winning producer Craig Street; Nona Hendryx’s guitarist/music director Ronny Drayton; and my High Harlem neighbor, the great Funkface frontman Luqman Brown, who’ll be backing me with some banjo. All of this outfit’s previous commissioned programs there have been standing room only and many people turned away at the entrance, so to y’all NYC folks, I recommend getting there as early as possible. Looking forward to seeing you twirl in your lace & suede platform boots. And I’ll be bringing down my tambourines Miz Ola Mae & Bootsy for the big fun, of course!
Throwback Thursday: Georgia sisters in performance
Well, y’all I’ve just taught myself 4 songs on the new banjolin, and now trying to get prepared for the upcoming long live season. For now, enjoying this video from a cold night down at NYC’s South Street Seaport art & music space Sugarcube: I’m playing with my sisterfriend Amanda Jo Williams from Hogansville, Georgia. We’re surely hoping to do some cool projects this year. Enjoy
Kandia Crazy Horse & Amanda Jo Williams
Summer Jams
My lil’ Cosmic Country act is enjoying a well-deserved Summer Break > Stay tuned for new sounds & all the way live adventures after Indian Summer! xoxo
Easy Ryder the Band’s Sound+Vision
Kandia Crazy Horse at The Grand Ole Echo in Texas | 03.14.2014
KG Music Press round-up of the Grand Ole Time in Austin, Texas during SXSW 2014, featuring leading Americana acts including Mike Stinson, Charlie Faye, NOCONA, Ted Russell Kamp & Kandia Crazy Horse
Kandia Crazy Horse in This Week In Black Rock | 03.12.2014
The Black Rock Coalition highlighted Kandia’s showcase on The Grand Ole Echo’s Grand Ole Time in Austin, Texas during South-By Southwest Music Festival 2014, via This Week In Black Rock newsletter
kandiacrazyhorse.com 