Walnut Valley Festival, Winfield, Kansas
September 15—19, 2010
Adie Grey has been around songwriters her whole life. Her cousins, the Tobias Brothers, are in the songwriter's Hall of Fame. One of her first memories as a kid was of everybody sitting around the piano trading songs during the Holidays. Bill Lava, her grandfather, wrote music for movies, cartoons, and TV shows. At the tender age of five, her grandfather had her sing a demo tune he'd written for the Bugs Bunny show. After that, Adie said she was hooked; all she wanted to do when she grew up was to write songs and play music.
Adie started playing in clubs and coffeehouses while still in junior high school where sometimes she was introduced as "The Girl Who's Out Past Her Bedtime." As time went on, she did a little bit of everything. She's played rock n' roll, was a lead singer in a country band, played at Renaissance fairs performing traditional Elizabethan music on the dulcimer, sang with the Reverend James Cleveland's Choir, and was a back-up singer for her friend, Vonda Shepard.
In 1989, Grey left a successful career in L.A. which included back-up and session singing, studio work on albums and radio and TV commercials, and headed for Nashville to pursue song writing full time. Finally in 1995, she self produced her debut album entitled, "Brand New Old Time Music" a collection of songs which blended a variety of regional American musical styles from blues to bluegrass and Cajun to old time country. It became a big success in both the US and Europe. In 1997, she released another album called "Grandpa's Advice." It hit the top 40 charts about mid-year and in early 1998 it was released in Europe. This resulted in her first overseas tour later that summer.
"I've been lucky," says Adie, "and I'm doing things I like to do. In addition I get to travel around the country and do concerts with folks like Arlo Guthrie, Kevin Welch, Jean Ritchie and a lot of other people whose music I admire."
Performing on stage at the Walnut Valley Festival with Adie will be her husband, Dave MacKenzie. Dave has been a professional musician since the age of thirteen and has appeared in major concert venues and festivals all across the country. There isn’t anything that Dave hasn’t done; he has worked as a studio musician, staff songwriter, musical director, band leader, film score composer, radio and TV jingle producer, gag writer and guitar instructor. In addition, he has conducted a college-level lecture series on the history of pre-WW/II blues recordings. He and Adie started "Hey Baby! Records in 1992.
As for the future, her plan is to keep on writing songs and looking into a whole mix of musical styles, blues and bluegrass, old-timey and swing, and she is anxious to see what comes out. I'll bet it will be her third album, what do you bet?
at hq@wvfest.com for festival info| jump to the top of this page | Walnut Valley Festival Post Office Box 245, 918 Main Winfield, Kansas 67156 (620) 221-3250 |
WV office hours are: Monday — Friday 9 am — Noon; 1 — 5 pm Central time |