Armed with George the trusty road cat, a carful of instruments, and all the fight of a rambling, rural-raised, queer femme wanderer, McKain Lakey is one to be reckoned with. She’s the rare human who feels as comfortable wielding a chisel as she does a guitar, who can be as often spotted behind the soundboard in a crowded venue as discussing the intersections of race and gender in old time music with a classroom full of 5th graders.
Described by What’s Up Magazine as “a time capsule unearthed, fine-tuned and re-imagined”, Lakey draws creative inspiration from far corners of the American music tradition, tracing the lines of musical lineage that connect Old Time to Rockabilly, Country to Cajun to Dixieland. She’s a dedicated student of tradition, but at once unafraid to stare down convention through the modern lens of her lived experience. Her new album, Somewhere, blurs lines of old and new, referencing musical textures of past eras while unabashedly exploring topics of mental health, family separation, rural identity and queer love.
Praise for Somewhere:
“McKain Lakey’s new album is a delight…a ton of inventive ideas.” -Devon Leger, Folk Alley
“Lakey highlights and subverts forces in society that work to suppress her identity, purely by sharing vulnerable, arresting stories from her life as a queer person on Somewhere…Lakey is clearly someone who knows who she is and what she has to say in her music.” -Alexa Peters, Audiofemme
“Lakey brings a strident confidence to her intensely vulnerable songs about anxiety, pain, and triumph…” -Rachel Cholst, Country Queer
“Somewhere is a celebration of multiple traditions by a fiercely devoted artist, who oozes a musical worldliness which is both refreshing and intoxicating.” -Declan Culliton, Lonesome Highway
“…the best country album of 2021.” -Alex Sturbaum, Countercurrent