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Kory and Kelsey Wells’ words and music go together like peaches and cream. Like meat and potatoes. Like pintos and cornbread.
Their fusion of Kory’s words & Kelsey’s old-time music has been called “bluegrass rap,” ”hillbilly cool.” They’re actually kind of suburb nerdy, but they love their Southern/Appalachian roots.
Kory Wells serves up the words. She’s the author of Heaven Was the Moon (March Street Press, 2009), a collection of poetry that explores Southern small town life, contemporary suburban sprawl, music, motherhood, prejudice, faith, and more.
Poet, novelist, and renowned writing coach Darnell Arnoult calls HWTM a “beautiful clutch of poems.” The Murfreesboro Pulse says Wells’ poems are “incredibly relatable.”
Kelsey's won awards for her fiddling at the Great Southern Old-Time Fiddlers' Convention and in the Grand Master Traditional Fiddler Championship in 2010.
Kelsey Wells provides the perfect complement of music. A former Uncle Dave Macon Days Macon-Doubler Scholarship recipient and a 2010 Youth Scholar of the Swannanoa Gathering at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, she plays fiddle, banjo, cello, and other instruments, accompanying her mom’s poems with bluegrass and old-time standards as well as original tunes.
Currently a Buchanan Fellow at Middle Tennessee State University and mentored by bluegrass musician Becky Buller, Kelsey is also a member of the band Sweet Fancy Moses. She’s an alumni of the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts and the Murfreesboro Youth Orchestra, for which she played percussion and violin.
Kory and Kelsey warm up at the Southern Festival of Books, 2011
The duo debuted to a standing-room-only audience at the 2009 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville shortly after Kory’s book was published. They regularly perform together at bookstores, libraries, festivals and other venues; they also perform individually at various writers conferences and old time and bluegrass festivals throughout the Southeast.
