BettySoo and Rebecca Loebe To Perform at The Windham Ballroom
Top Texas singer-songwriters take the stage on Thursday, 21 February.

Consider these two sentences from BettySoo’s bio: “Mostly, she toured. Every other minute, she was flying to visit best friends in rehab, driving for days with friends whose family lives were crumbling, visiting mental hospitals, going to houses and cleaning kitchens and bathrooms when friends had no will left to do it themselves.”

One might assume that there would be no time left for making music but, instead, BettySoo has been involved with more music than most people who stay in their bedrooms all day with Garageband on. In addition to her own records, the most recent of which is When We’re Gone, BettySoo is a sought-after session singer for the likes of Eliza Gilkyson and the late Jimmy LaFave, and performs as an integral part of several other acts. This includes retropop faves Charlie Faye & the Fayettes, and Nobody’s Girl, the Americana trio she created with Rebecca Loebe, with whom she shares the stage at the Windham Ballroom on Thursday, February 21.

These women, neighbors in Austin, have both won the prestigious Kerrville New Folk award. With Grace Pettis they formed Nobody’s Girl in late 2017, and released an iPhone video of their take on Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car which quickly went viral. A record deal followed a few months later and they were off to the races.

Together and apart, both women make impeccably produced records with Austin a-listers, but are mainly known for their crisp and enchanting singing and intelligent, riveting songs as trumpeted by the media in byte after byte. England’s Q Magazine guessed that BettySoo was the only second generation Korean singing country music in Texas, and while the writer might have hoped to cast her as a novelty, the combination of her made-for-country name and her sturdy Texan renown paint a picture of the real Americana that her songs detail. She’s not just a great artist, she’s a lesson to boot.

Amid all the rest of this, on February 8th Ms. Loebe will release a new solo record, Give Up Your Ghosts, on the respected Texas label Blue Corn. Loebe first gained national notice as a contestant on The Voice, and has toured steadily since, including a show in Bellows Falls in 2012. BettySoo, in turn, first appeared in the region at the 2017 Roots on the River festival, where Nobody’s Girl will be appearing in June. It’s an entangled and communitarian musical storm that swirls outwards from Austin, Texas, and these women are squarely in its eye — as they should be squarely in your ears.

On Thursday, February 21, the Windham Ballroom invites you to see what the fuss is about. Tickets are $15 in advance and $18 at the door and are available at popolomeanspeople.com. The show is presented in cooperation between Popolo and Stage 33 Live. More info at popolomeanspeople.com and info@popolo.us

More info at popolomeanspeople.com and info@popolo.us