There are beautiful, amazing and talented people in this world. Sometimes you have to travel to a music conference in Montreal to find out one of them, Kelly Dougherty, has lived a few houses down the street from you for years. Until recently, Kelly served as the Communications Director for Folk Alliance International…an organization whose mission is to serve, strengthen, and engage the global folk music community through preservation, presentation, and promotion. She was poised to be instrumental in organizing and managing the annual Folk Alliance International Conference as it returned to it’s home base in Kansas City, Missouri in 2021. The Conference was cancelled due to the COVID 19 pandemic and the fallout has led to FAI staff cuts that included Kelly.
We recently sat down for a conversation in my home, physically distant but close enough to record a wide ranging conversation that included discovering she started her music career as a young child performing pantomime, ala Marcel Marceau, in beauty pageants in Wyoming, followed by a stint singing and dancing with her dad’s honky tonk band in Western saloons, meeting the likes of country stars like Johnny Cash during Cheyenne’s Frontier Days. As an adult she has discovered and curated a love and respect for Irish music and culture, volunteering heavily at Kansas City’s Irish Center, Irish Fest and tending bar occasionally at Browne’s Irish Marketplace.
Kelly actively volunteers in the dog rescue community and has teamed up with another talented neighbor, Jill Westra, performing locally as “Distant Cousins.” As you listen to Kelly’s story, I’m certain you will agree she has what it takes to come back stronger and engaged more than ever in the community she loves. And if I ever get to travel to my ancestral home….Ireland… I want Kelly to be my guide. Enjoy this sheltering in place conversation and musical interlude from Kelly's CD "Dair" courtesy of my friend and neighbor, Kelly Dougherty.
