FAVE 5 with AMYTHYST KIAH Tom Murray

FAVE5with AMYTHYST KIAH

By Tom Murray

It’s been a long road for Amythyst Kiah, but the payoff is beginning to happen.

“You know, you don’t start out playing stadiums, you start at the farmer’s market, or breweries, or coff ee shops,” says the 35-year-old singer-songwriter. “You just work and see where it goes.”

For Kiah it’s recently led to a Grammy nominated song, Black Myself, taken from her collaboration with Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Russell, and Leyla McCalla as Our Native Daughters, a vocal track on Moby’s 2021 single Natural Blues (Reprise Version), and last year’s Rounder Records debut, Wary + Strange. Self-described as a “funny-talking, sci-fi -loving, queer Black,” Kiah also can’t be contained by genre, as proven by her sombre, acoustic cover of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart. Kiah has a long list of clubs in the United States that she loves to play, so much so that she agonized over the choices; here are fi ve of them, in no particular order.

THE ORANGE PEEL, ASHEVILLE NORTH CAROLINA

I live in Johnson City, Tennessee, which is like an hour drive from Asheville, so I go there pretty regularly when I’m in town. I get my nails done there, my girlfriend and I go to a restaurant that I like, and I get to The Orange Peel as much as I can. I just love it; I’ve seen Tegan & Sara there, Gary Clark Jr, even a burlesque festival that they host there in May. I recently opened for an alternative rock band called Luna at the Orange Peel, and it was everything I hoped it would be, because the sound engineers are super pro.

THE DOWN HOME, JOHNSON CITY TENNESSEE

In 2000 I enrolled in a Bluegrass and Old Time music studies class at East Tennessee State University, and the last of the three required band performances was always at the Down Home. It’s been there since 1976, and it’s run by this singer-songwriter who modeled it after a club in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It looks exactly the same as it did when it opened, like it’s the exact same furniture, and there’s something special about it. It’s usually people from the bluegrass, country, and Americana realm like The SteelDrivers and Gretchen Peters. It’s the fi rst place I got my feet wet in a venue, so I feel really close to it.

THE NEPTUNE, SEATTLE WASHINGTON

The Neptune is this big old theater with murals on the wall inspired by the god Neptune. I was there the month before the pandemic, on a two month run with a singer songwriter named Yola, who’s also a dear friend of mine. Anyways, Brandi Carlile, who lives outside of Seattle, surprised everybody by playing a solo set before me and Yola. By the time that news came out it was sold out. That room has an energy to it that I can’t describe but you can feel it.

HI FI INDIE, INDIANAPOLIS INDIANA

I play a lot of theatres with seats but the Hi Fi Indie is more of a rock club, with standing room only. They’ve got a great Green Room and the people working there are total pros. They care about putting on a great show and everything sounding right. They’re very attentive at the board. If something’s going wrong they’re on it; they don’t just plug and play and then they’re on their phone. All the best clubs are like that, but not all clubs are like that.

9:30 CLUB, WASHINGTON D.C.

I’ve played at the 9:30 Club twice; once in 2016 or 2018, once in 2020. Again, the sound was great, hospitality was great, the crowd was amazing. I had a fantastic time playing there. Also, this was honestly not planned, but right now I’m wearing my (branded) 9:30 socks. I’m just walking around and I looked down and oh my God, I’m actually wearing them. So obviously I really love the place and can’t wait to get back there again.

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