San Francisco Singer-Songwriter. Rootsy, Americana, Bluesy. Touching, humorous, original, spellbinding storytelling—my songwriting brings you into the irony, the tragedy, and the possibilities of life! . . . And then there's poetry, an upcoming novel, and Blue Lilah!
I’m so thrilled to release my fourth album of original songs. Gravity Man is an offering of love songs and songs about love that weaves joy, heartbreak, sorrow and humor into soulfully crafted songs in the americana style with flavors of folk, funk, blues, torch-style jazz, swing, rock, pop, celtic, psychedelic and dixieland. These are stories of loved fulfilled, unrequited love, self-love, family love, and the permutations of love lost and gained. Let your heart be moved and your feet dance as you take this journey through love’s unpredictable twists and turns.
KATHLEEN’S SHOW! THIS COMING SATURDAY: April 6 at Heart Tribe in Fairfax!
DATE: Saturday, April 6 TIME: Doors open 6:45pm and Show at 7pm WHERE: Heart Tribe 7 Bolinas Road Fairfax, CA 94930 COST: $20 Advance, $25 at the Door TICKETS: Purchase Tickets Here
Please come join Kathleen Dunbar for this intimate limited seating engagement.Advance tickets recommended to reserve your seat! Purchase Tickets Here
• This will be a celebration of specially selected songs from her musical catalog. • You’ll hear songs from her first three albums, including her most recently released album Liars, Cutthroats and Dames.Plus a sneak peek into songs from her upcoming fourth album of love songs, Smoochy Smoo.
• Let her beguile and bewitch you, inspire you, break your heart, and make you laugh! Her songs are vignettes into our very-human temptations and redemptions, with a good dose of humor whilst the angels and devils bet which way we go at the crossroads.
• You can listen to Kathleen here: kathleendunbar.com
“Kathleen Dunbar and her literally amazing band of talented Better Devils, achieves a rare and utterly unique blend of musical and lyrical symmetry. Highly recommended!”—Russell David“Kathleen Dunbar has just renewed my appreciation for story-telling songs. The genres mix beautifully to form a potent eye of the storm into which you’ll gladly be swept.”—Music Emissions
This will be an intimate evening with Kathleen–Advanced Tickets recommended. Purchase Tickets Here
Kathleen DunbarSan Francisco Singer-Songwriter Kathleen Dunbar performs her blend of rootsy, humorous, and spellbinding storytelling about tragedy and redemption through her original song compositions in the Americana tradition. Join her on a musical journey into the darkness of the heart, love, betrayal, steamy romance, and the transformation of the spirit after passing through the flames. These are stories about us as we face the circumstances we humans get ourselves into and the choices that we ultimately make—some of them funky, some of them ending in the dark, others rising into the light of morning.
For this intimate evening Kathleen will be joined by her guitarist, producer and multi-instrumentalist Gawain Mathews and stand up bass player Ben Levine.
Gawain Mathews gigs with Kathleen Dunbar as her guitarist and banjo player. His magic thread runs all through the music you hear. Gawain is Kathleen’s arranger and producer. On her CDs he plays guitar, mandola, banjo, keyboards, pedal steel, accordion and percussion. Gawain hails from the wilds of Wales and the hot deserts of Utah (he prefers clouds to sun). He brings multiple skills as producer and arranger and years of musicianship in a wide range of styles. He’s toured as guitarist for Mickey Hart. Gawain has had his original music featured on Fox’s American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance. Currently he’s a music producer in the San Francisco Bay Area working with a diverse roster of clients and styles.
Ben Levine is a bassist whose performing career has taken him to all 50 States, Europe, China, Canada, and Central America. He has performed as a sideman with some of the top recording stars in country music including multi-platinum artists Neal McCoy and Mark Wills, as well as former American Idol Josh Gracin. Ben is also a founding member of the groundbreaking bluegrass tribute band “Honeywagon” whose 2003 album “Green Day Blue Grass” spent over a year in the top 10 of Billboard’s Bluegrass Album Chart reaching as high as the #3 position. Ben was also a featured performer on the Grammy winning classical album “Guitar Heroes” by the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. An active musician in the Bay Area, Ben teaches at Diablo Valley College and performs with several popular local groups including, The Boombox, Bell and Co., Haulin’ Oats, and The Urban Outlaws. Visit Ben’s bluegrass site at: http://honeywagonmusic.com
This will be an intimate evening with Kathleen. Advance Tickets recommended.
THE BACK STORY BEHIND MY SONG “Circus”
Where do my songs come from? I feel they might be playing in some other universe and I receive a transmission right into my radio heart-brain. Somehow I “hear” them and out they flow from my voice and pen! The original impetus for the song “Circus” on my brand new album Liars, Cutthroats and Dames is a dream I had one night! In the dream I was laying in a large bed on a mezzanine with the various wild acts of a circus happening on every level of the oddly shaped building. Suddenly a knife thrower appeared and threw his knifes with lightning speed all around my body, outlining me! He was almost completely accurate. One of the knives gave a papercut graze to my cheek. In the dream I wondered, “Hm, I wonder if it’s a good idea or not to date him?” Ha! I woke up and thought, “My god! This is a song!” and proceeded to tell the story of the knifethrower. You will hear in the instrumental section a theramin, an instrument I love, which renders so well the tight-rope drama of the circus. My producer-multi-instrumentalist Gawain Mathews perfectly arranged the song with an organ carrying forward the larger than life pulse of the circus, and plays the idiosyncratic voices of an accordion, mandola, banjo and guitar. We got a big virtual “Piatti” symbol crash. And BIG thanks to Nicholas Daniel Wlodarszyk for his completely awesome comic trombone. Here’s the opening lyrics:
a freak as a boy on the far side of hell he lived by his wits in a crumbling motel with the eyes of a gunner, a rock steady aim all that he lacked was a good looking dame
charm won the girl and the damage was done his prospects weren’t much but it sounded like fun when the call comes for you and you step in the ring inside the big tent you get to be king!
HOW TO LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE CD: You can listen to complete tracks of the entire album at this link on my Store page:https://www.kathleendunbarmusic.com/store
You can listen to all of the songs on the album three times for free before being prompted to purchase. You can purchase the album via Itunes, Amazon, etc. simply by visiting the links on my website Store page. In addition to offering a digital download, you can also order a physical CD from CDBaby—again, right there on my Store page.
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD: Please feel free to forward this to anyone who you feel would like to accompany me on this musical journey. Thank you in advance for your support, my dears!
Love, Kathleen
Photography by Joseph Feusi
All songs copyrighted by Kathleen Dunbar
Hello Everybody! This is Kathleen Dunbar with BIG NEWS!As some of you may know or have heard—my latest americana-bluesy-rootsy CD Liars, Cutthroats and Dames has been in it’s final stages of completion: Well, I’m happy to announce to you that it is officially finished and I am RELEASING IT out into the world!
MY NEW CD IS HERE—it is available for you all RIGHT NOW!
FREE DOWNLOAD:
I am so excited that I want to give you all an opportunity to sample it for free, so here we go with a FREE DOWNLOAD of the first track, Lilah, just for you. Here’s the link to get your free download: https://kathleendunbarmusic.com/get-a-free-download-here
HOW TO LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE CD:
You can listen to complete tracks of the entire album at this link on my Store page: https://www.kathleendunbarmusic.com/storeYou can listen to all of the songs on the album three times for free before being prompted to purchase, or you can find me on Spotify for continued streaming. You can purchase the album via Itunes, Amazon, etc. simply by visiting the links on my website Store page. In addition to offering a digital download, you can also order a physical CD from CDBaby—again, right there on my Store page.
ABOUT THIS ALBUM: Of course, all the songs are originals written by me! With each song I take you on a different journey. This new album departs from my previous two Americana CDs—I dive deeper and delve further into the dark and the light side of the human psyche, and I’ll make you feel, think, and sometimes laugh out loud!
Please come and join me on this musical journey! I’d love to hear your opinions and comments! Please let me know what you think and feel about my new CD Liars, Cutthroats and Dames by dropping me a line at: kathleen@kathleendunbarmusic.com I send out a monthly newsletter with fun stories, tidbits and gossip about the songs and the amazing musicians on this CD. I also let you know about upcoming shows. To sign up for my newsletter, just use that same band email at kathhleen@kathleendunbarmusic.com
And hey, if you’d like, I’m available to do a house concert at your house if you live in the SF Bay Area! These are fun, warm, intimate, unforgettable gatherings.
BIG THANKS AND LOVE TO THE AWESOME MUSICIANS:
I want to thank the incredible musicians who helped me bring my original songs to life!
That’s me, Kathleen Dunbar/Songwriting and Vocals. And my incredible band which is called The Better Devils, is: Gawain Mathews/guitars, electric bass, banjo, mandola, keyboards, accordion, percussion, backing vocals. KyleCaprista/drums. Dan Feiszli/standup bass. Nicholas Daniel Wlodarszyk/trombone. Eric Levy/piano on Baby Put Your Red Shoes On. Rich Armstrong/trumpet. Bryan S. Dyer/backing vocals. MJ Lee./violin. Joseph Feusi/backing vocals. Big thanks and love to Joseph Feusi, Raz Kennedy and the incredible multitalented Gawain Mathews who is my producer, arranger, mixer and angel in general!
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD:
Please feel free to forward this to anyone who you feel would like to accompany me on this musical journey. Thank you in advance for your support, my dears!
I am excited and delighted to announce that I am nominated in THREE categories for the Just Plain Folks Music Awards, (exact date to be announced soon! I will be attending and can’t wait!) It’s a big deal: 17K albums and 240K songs were entered for the current awards, which cover the expanse of time since their last awards in 2009.
Nominated for Best World Music Album is my Blue Lilah album Medicine Songs by myself/Kathleen Dunbar and Gawain Mathews. To hear it click: LISTEN TO THE MEDICINE SONGS ALBUM
Nominated for Best World Music Song is my songBleyso from my Blue Lilah album Medicine Songs by myself/Kathleen Dunbar and Gawain Mathews. To hear the song click: LISTEN TO BLEYSO
Nominated for Best Spoken Word Song from my Kathleen Dunbar americana-rootsy original album The Storm In Our Head is my track Snakecharmer. To hear it click: LISTEN TO SNAKECHARMER
Here’s the link TO LISTEN TO an instrumental version MY ORIGINAL SONG “Half of You Good” (from my forthcoming album Liars, Cutthroats and Dames) opening Adriana Marchione’s film-in-progress The Creative High and watch Adriana Marchione’s coolio film in progress: LINK:https://vimeo.com/171950766
Hey Folks,
Coolio filmmaker Adriana Marchione starts out her video of her film in progress on artists, their addiction and recovery with an instrumental version OF ONE OF MY NEW SONGS from my forthcoming album Liars, Cutthroats and Dames! So if you click on the link you can immediately hear my awesome producer and guitarist Gawain Mathews doing his amazing guitar rendition of my original song Half Of You Good. I’m also writing a novel, and this song explores the addiction of a gambler in the Old West. Pretty soon you can get to hear the complete version including me singing my lyrics as we only have to master all the tracks and then release it to the world!
THANK YOU ADRIANA for your important and very wonderful film project, and I am delighted each time I see more of it unfolding. I’m honored to have my music in your movie.
She’s also put my original music in her podcast! THANKS!
Adriana writes: “Our video of our film in progress – a sneak peek into our footage and the artists in recovery who have been brave enough to share their story. Extremely grateful for all the people who have contributed to make this video happen including musician Kathleen Dunbar, who generously offered her music to support the film project and The Creative High podcast. Visit Kathleen’s website athttp://www.kathleendunbarmusic.com“
DATE: Thursday 03/24/16 TIME:1:00pm-2:00pm WHERE: 89.5 KPOO-FM
You can also Tune in ANYWHEREon phone/desktopw/ the KPOO appat thisLINK.
I am excited to support the making of Adriana Marchione’s latest documentary film entitledThe Creative High, a film about artists of all kinds submerged in and emerging from the addiction process.She will be interviewed on KPOO about what’s happening in her current process of creating this documentary, and she’s generously included playing two of my songs as part of the show: Half of You Good and Joytown, bothoff my upcoming CD Liars, Cutthroats and Dames!My fab partner Joseph Feusi is the film’s Producer. Thanks Adriana! You can read more details about her awesome and important project and follow the links to it by looking at the article directly below.
Meanwhile, please check out thisFree Downloadof my song Hung Him On A Tree.It’s not yet mastered, but it’s one helluva cool sneak preview to my upcoming NEW CD “Liars, Cutthroats and Dames” which will be out SOON! To get a taste of my new album and this song, click this link: http://kathleendunbarmusic.com/downloadofhunghimonatreefree
Here is film-maker Adriana Marchione’s statement about her upcoming documentary The Creative High: “Through art-making, I want to show the emotional depth and search for meaning that accompanies the struggle to recover from addiction. We need artistic role models who have made the passage to the other side of addiction to give hope to those who are still in the throes of addiction. This film will delve into the addict’s challenge to maintain equilibrium before and after recovery, and showcase the ways that art can be a guidepost. I have witnessed the creative process expand in recovery as well as diminish; experienced the dependence on the addiction as a muse that fuels a continued well-spring of altered art-making; and been awed by the abundant inspiration that art produces – allowing a ‘high’ to reveal itself through the sheer presence and attention to the present moment.” Here’s the link to the film project: The Creative High
Here I am, working on my Western novel, and we find The Rifleman as he rides into a town as a young man
I arrived in Dillardtown on a fine evening having crossed a stony river lined by cottonwoods and provided with a sturdy bridge. I came into the town downstream of a recent flood for the main street gave evidence of the uppity nature of the river which had left its banks and poured through the town leaving great runnels and gouges drying into what should have been a thoroughfare and instead was a mess. Horses and wagons clunked and sucked through the street men swore one had lost his boot to the powers of the mud and further on was his stocking. The collection of financial establishments was compressed into five blocks on either side of the mud. Money changed hands between them at a furious pace. Countless rough men struggled back and forth through the riverbottom so that the mud covered every flooring in the town. Here were assayer’s office, bank, saloons aplenty, whorehouses fancy and plain, hotel, restaurants and chophouses; there was the smell of mud, horses, food, shit, laundry steam, piss, perfume if you paid for the parlor ladies, and if a fellow saved enough after that grand round he’d have himself shaved, might dip into a tin bath, resupply at the drygoods and grocers his pans and shovels and vittles and ammunition, pick up his horse or mule from the livery and go stick it once again into the earth who heaved her rocks and stones and broke his back if he was unlucky or let him into her inner gleamings which he stole with both hands as fast as he could and came to talk about it loudly in the town.
Here’s a poem set to music, another western-with-a-twist, on my CD The Storm in Our Head. It’s called “Snake Charmer.” Find it on Bandcamp or on my website, www.kathleendunbarmusic.com
RADIO INTERVIEW: Kathleen will be interviewed on Blue Lew’s SFCR Radio show this Monday, May 25! WHEN: Monday, May 25, Labor Day TIME: Somewhere between 3:30 and 5:30! SHOW: The Blue Lew Show INTERNET RADIO: To listen to the interview and music from my current and my upcoming CDs here’s how ya do it:
1) Go to this link: http://savekusf.org/shows
2) On the right side under the banner entitled Listen to SFCR click on the link that says, Launch Live365 Player.You can see what it looks like in the picture at the top here.
3) A screen will appear and you’ll immediately be tuned in!You can see what it looks like on the picture below.
Of course, all the songs are originals written by me! With each song I take you on a different journey. This new album departs from my previous two Americana CDs—I dive deeper and delve further into the dark and the light side of the human psyche, and I’ll make you feel, think, and sometimes laugh out loud!
Kathleen Dunbar 