Kerry Grombacher and Aspen Black, both successful solo artists, have worked together as a duo since 2014.Influenced by the English ballad tradition, the string-band music of Aspen’s Appalachian home, and the corridos of the desert Southwest, where Kerry has lived and worked,their songs tell fascinating stories of explorers and settlers, Indians and cowboys, and lawmen and outlaws whose lives shaped the West. As a duo, or as solo performers, they’ve worked with libraries and arts councils from border to border and coast to coast, and they’ve appeared at events such as the Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, the Georgia Cowboy Gathering, the Newport Folk Festival, and the Louisiana Folklife Festival.
Kerry Grombacherplays guitar and mandolin. His songs have been featured on the ABC-TV adventure travel show, “Born to Explore,” and on the Putumayo World Records CD “Cowboy Playground,” which was released in over 60 countries. He has released five albums of original songs, and his songs have been recorded by a list of artists that includes Jim Jones, Belinda Gail, The Texas Trailhands, Gary Prescott, and Trails & Rails. There is a room named for him at the Sands Motel in Grants NM, on Historic Route 66.
Aspen Black plays guitar and bass. She received a Will Rogers Medallion for her 2018 CD of Cowboy Poetry, “Tales From the Road,” and her “Lovin’ the West” won the Rural Roots Music Commission’s 2017 Classic Western CD of the Year award. Her “Eastern-Western Cowgirl” was the Rural Roots Music Commission’s 2015 Female Country-Western CD of the Year. She was a Top Five finalist for the International Western Music Association’s Female Poet of the Year in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. In 2018,“Tales From the Road” was a Top Five finalist, and in 2015 and 2016, “Invisibility” was a Top Five finalist, for the International Western Music Association’s Cowboy Poetry CD of the Year.
