Album Notes

BLUES, 2001
STONE TIGER RECORDS

*Independent Music Awards - "JOSIE" - 2005 Best Blues Song.
*Pasatiempo's BEST-"SKY DIRT SPEAK OUT TRUTH"-2003 Best New Mexico Album.
*WILDSANG -"Strong voices giving good messages!"-Rhiannon

Currently based in California, award winning blues duo WILDSANG makes a ton of sound for two people. They are a trip back in time from the twenty first century to the early years of blues. Soaring harp. Crying slide guitar. Scorching vocals. Real emotion. This is the Real Deal. It is also an answer to the old time male blues singers. It is feminist blues. Bessie Smith and Big Mama Thornton would be proud.

Berklee College of Music alumni, Hillary Kay's roots are buried deep in the black musical tradition. Joe "King" Oliver (and his Creole Jazz Band), one of the originators of jazz music & Louis Armstrong's mentor, is her great uncle and classical composer Ulysses Kay is her father. Hillary's mother, Freedom Rider Barbara Kay - marched side by side with Dr. King and was arrested and imprisoned in Mississippi's Parchman Penitentiary in the fight for voting rights and racial equality. The Freedom Songs kept up the spirits of the protesters on the marches and in the jails and Hillary was raised in this tradition. Hillary has performed in colleges and clubs up and down the east and west US coasts as well as in Rome Italy. Inspired by her love of the blues and the music of Howlin' Wolf, Charlie Patton, Big Momma Thornton, Robert Johnson and Son House, Hillary acquired a 1933 National Resonator guitar and embarked on a trip into the deep blues. She is still on what has become a life journey.

Kate Freeman fell in love with the blues the moment she heard Lightnin' Hopkins and Big Momma Thornton in 1964. Next, she picked up a $2.00 Hohner Blues Harp and never put it down. Shortly thereafter, the richness and spirit of the music from the Mississippi Delta and North Carolina's Piedmont Plateau got under Kate's skin and there began a lifetime love affair with the blues. A San Francisco native, Kate was surrounded by the musical greats of the Sixties. At any given time you could be jammin' or hangin' with The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin & Big Brother & The Holding Company, The Doors, Buffalo Springfield, or Moby Grape. You never knew who would be around the corner and music and magic were definitely alive and well. Kate dedicated her life to the blues over thirty-five years ago and this dedication has never wavered. After performing together, "FANG", aka Tom Byrd Hoskins - the man who discovered Mississippi John Hurt - said of Kate Freeman "you're the finest harmonica player I've ever heard". Humbling praise that moves one to strive for excellence.

WILDSANG has shared the stage with, Taj Mahal, Ani DiFranco, Corey Harris, Gov't Mule, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Iris Dement, Eliza Gylkison, Sophie B. Hawkins, Chris Williamson, Hot Buttered Rum String Band, Buffy Saint Marie, Arlo Guthrie, Rick Danko of The Band, Steady Rollin' Bob Margolin, Tony Furtado & The American Gypsies, Henry Butler, John McEuen of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Pete Seeger, Janis Ian, Toshi Regan, Judy Mowatt of the I-Threes (Bob Marley's back up singers).
Also on CDBABY:
WILDSANG: SKY DIRT SPEAK OUT TRUTH - 2003
HILLARY KAY: EMBRACE THE MORNING - 1999