Cathy Ponton King finds her voice in the blues
Originally published August 20, 2009


By Lauren LaRocca
News-Post Staff

        
        


Information: www.the-music-cafe.com

        
Cathy Ponton King grew up in an Irish family and learned to play traditional music by the age of 10. When her love for blues took precedent, she began writing her own material, but her roots weren't lost.

"I was really influenced by the Irish spirit," she said.

She put herself through college by playing folk music at the Dubliner, a club in D.C., before her blues days.

Playing Irish music limited her because she wanted to write her own material and Irish clubs typically wanted her to play traditional songs.

"I dearly love Irish music to this day," she said, "but it didn't allow me to be a songwriter."

The two genres might not be so different. Both include slow, mournful ballads as well as joyful, exuberant melodies, and "both mine deep into the human soul," she said. "Ireland is the land of the saints and scholars and poets; I think they tap into the human soul. ... The depths of emotion that Muddy Waters is able to produce -- that was some of the deepest emotions ever put into music."

A student of poetry, King believes Irish poets and blues writers are "equally as deep."

She said her switch to blues was freeing, and the switch from part-time to full-time musician even more so. She worked in the radio business for several years before committing to her music full time in 1983.

"Everyone thought I was crazy," she said.

Currently based in Vienna, Va., she has since recorded two albums and has toured the East Coast continually. She said she plays mostly in the Maryland, D.C., Virginia region and sees her native D.C. as the hub. She's played Frederick several times for nearly 20 years, mostly at the Bentz Street Raw Bar, once the chief blues venue in town.

On Saturday, she'll play the Music Caf? in Damascus, her first time at the venue.

She performs with several musicians which include Frederick -based drummer Bob Berberich; Antoine Sanfuentes, another drummer; keyboardist Bill Starks; and guitarist Dave Chappell. She's worked with Jim Robeson, who has won two Grammies for studio production and is both her producer and bassist, as well as Jeff King, her executive producer and songwriter whom she married.

On her most recent album, "Undertow," released last fall, her husband wrote three of the songs, including its title track. She penned all the others.

"The blues music is always simmering as a very potent force," she said. "It allows me to say whatever I want as a songwriter."

www.cathypontonking.com

www.cdbaby.com/cd/cathypontonking