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Katie Shore accepting her Musician of the Year Award in Memphis, Tennessee, February 19th Photo courtesy the Ameripolitan Music Awards
Ameripolitan Music Awards honored Katie Shore as Musician of the Year in Memphis, Tennessee, on Sunday, February 19! This is a well deserved recognition for her as an established musician in the Saving Country Roots genre!
Katie is a Fort Worth native who has been a fiddle player, vocalist, and songwriter for eight years with Ray Benson’s Asleep at the Wheel. She has been featured in several publications including Texas Monthly, Rolling Stone, and several European music journals. She has also made appearances with Willie Nelson, George Strait, and Lyle Lovett.
Katie comes from a musical family. Her grandparents and parents played a variety of instruments: fiddle, mandolin, guitar, organ, piano, and even saxophone. Katie and her brother, Ross Holmes, both play several instruments as well. Ross is currently a fiddle player and vocalist for Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
As a young child, four-yearold Katie loved the fiddle tunes her granddad played for her. He found a half-sized fiddle with a short bow, and thrilled to begin to play “all by myself,” she would hardly put it down! Any tune he played, she could hear it, and then played it back to him! Fast learner!
Throughout her school years, Katie played in Texas Style Fiddle Contests, the Fort Worth Youth Orchestra, Paschal High School Jazz Band, and local venues in the Metroplex. Her family often stopped at nearby Central Texas venues as they traveled to their ranch not too far from Bend. She played tunes at Luke Jones Music Hall in Adamsville, Texas, and Jamborees in Pearl, McGregor, Goldthwaite, and Oatmeal, Texas, where she was mentored by old time musicians.
She and Ross attended many summertime fiddle camps hosted by Mark O’Connor in Tennessee, Randy Elmore in Texas, Johnny and Dick Gimble in Texas and New Mexico, and Byron Berline in Oklahoma. While still in high school, Katie won the first fiddle contest held at Red Steagall’s Cowboy Gathering for which she was awarded a college scholarship.
In college, Katie mastered an additional array of bowing techniques, as well as very technical fiddle styles, classical pieces, Western Swing dance tunes, Bluegrass, and French Acadian arrangements.
Katie’s first album was “Fall Away.” “Still the King,” “New Routes,” “Lone Star Christmas Night,” and “Half a Hundred Years,” were recorded with Asleep at the Wheel. Her recent releases are “Road to Eunice” with Johnny Nicholas, and “Moon and Stars: A Tribute to Moon Mullican” featuring an all star lineup of musicians.
Katie and her husband Mike Shore live in Fredericksburg where they are “pet parents” to a Great Pyrenees, Gypsy, and two cats, George and Melvin. All of them sit beside Katie when she rehearses at home. Mike plays guitar, so if the three “soloists” decide to sing along, you’re in for a delightful concert!
Congratulations to Katie for her well-earned award as Ameripolitan’s Musician of the Year!
Editor's note: Katie performed with Johnny Nicholas at Bend General Store on February 25th. To see more pictures and videos, see Bend General Store's Facebook page.