The feeling that hits you when you first encounter the singing voice of North Carolina native Kelley Breiding is akin to the sensation of seeing a ghost. There might be shivers up the spine, hair standing up on the back of your neck, and soon the realization that you might be encountering a spirit from another era. Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Wanda Jackson, Dinah Washington and Memphis Minnie come to mind. A sense of déjà vu may wash over you – you think you’ve heard this voice before but you just can’t put your finger on it. Maybe it’s just that there aren’t many out there making real country music anymore, and certainly not in the tradition of the great country female artists of days gone by.
Breiding explains that she is largely self-taught. “I started playing old-time music first,” she recalls, “as a 20-year-old in college. The only music that I saw people play in our house growing up was my mom on the piano.” Over time, Breiding became a formidable banjo player in the Round Peak tradition, a picking style popularized by Surry County musicians such as Fred Cockerham and Tommy Jarrell, eventually joining the ranks of award-winning old-time group Back-Step alongside father and son duo Nick and Chester McMillian. In time, Breiding joined another old-time string band group, The Red Hots, as bassist alongside fiddler Joe Thrift.
In 2005, Breiding rediscovered her passion for classic country and western music and formed Kelley and the Cowboys, a band that specializes in vintage Americana in the mold of Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, and Loretta Lynn. After years playing an instrument, Breiding explains that she enjoys leading the band with her voice. Says the singer, “I’m looking for a way to sing where I can stop someone and make them feel something that they haven’t felt that night. When someone comes up to me after a show and [says that they] felt that they were really connected to the music—that’s my ultimate goal. I want people to be moved by the music, because it moves me.”