To quote the title of the lead single from her most recent album, Kelley Mickwee is a “Force of Nature” on the Texas music scene. A resident of Austin, she’s been making music in various groups for many years, latterly concentrating more on her solo career. Released in 2014, her début album was entitled “You Used To Live Here”. It was fully ten years until her next collection came along in late 2024, when “Everything Beautiful” saw her return to a soulful Memphis kind of sound.
Before concentrating on her solo composition and performances, Mickwee made up a quarter of the superb vocal harmony group The Trishas and has frequently opened up shows for the likes of Ray Wylie Hubbard and Courtney Patton with her blues and gospel-influenced songs. In between the two solo albums, she took up a role as one of two backing singers with Shinyribs, the brainchild of Kevin Russell. Fusing Gulf Coast R & B with a Muscle Shoals vibe, the experience of performing with this 10-piece collective no doubt sharpened Mickwee’s appetite to embrace the spirit of “Dusty in Memphis”.
A versatile and industrious nature has enabled her to keep working, one of her occupations being as a host DJ on Austin’s Sun Radio, a network of eleven terrestrial and online stations. She’s certainly a champion of americana and each year co-hosts the Red River Songwriters Festival. A terrific example of her lyrical talents can be found in the song ‘Beautiful Accidents’ from her début album, which visits a similar scenario to Emmylou Harris’s ‘Red Dirt Girl’.
“They didn’t know what they were doing, but they knew it felt good / Turned out they didn’t care about the why or should / He took her to the movies, she took his name / They moved to Texarkana when the baby came”.
To listen to Kelley Mickwee is like taking a little bit of Dusty’s ‘Son of a Preacher Man’ mixed in with strains of Susan Tedeschi’s ‘It Hurt So Bad’ and wrapped in the warm overcoat of Etta James’s ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’. Have a listen – you won’t be disappointed.
