Kate Brislin
Kate Brislin is a singer, guitarist, and banjo player from the San Francisco Bay Area. She started piano at five and switched to stringed instruments after her father gave her a ukulele. Her early favorites included Flatt & Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, and the Louvin Brothers, and she sang duets in the style of the Everly Brothers with her older sister. She taught herself clawhammer banjo and played in old-time string bands, including the Arkansas Sheiks. In the 1970s she was a member of the all-woman Any Old Time String Band, which recorded two albums and played Saturday nights at Paul's Saloon in San Francisco. In the early 1980s she played with the Blue Flame String Band. She met Jody Stecher in 1974 and began performing with him as a duo in 1985, and the two married on July 29, 1987. Two of their albums, Our Town and Heart Songs: The Old Time Country Songs of Utah Phillips, were nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album. She has also performed and recorded with Hazel Dickens, Mike Seeger, and Alice Gerrard. She sings in the doo-wop group the Chanterelles with Barbara Mendelsohn and Piper Heisig. She has largely retired from touring but still performs occasionally and teaches at camps.
In the newsletter
- No. 1 September 1994
- No. 5 Oct.—Dec. 1995
- No. 8 Summer 1996
- No. 9 Fall 1996
- No. 10 Winter 1997
- No. 18 Winter 1999
Wrote
- Letters...: Kate Brislin (No. 5)