In `Good Company'
Oklahoma-bred singersongwriter Kalyn Fay pays tribute to home state with new LP
Kalyn Fay hadn't even left Oklahoma, but she already was pining for her home state.
Until recently, the folk singer-songwriter was a lifelong Oklahoman: She was born in Tahlequah, raised in Okemah and came of age in Tulsa. She is of Cherokee heritage, once did a residency with late state music legend Tom Skinner and released
her debut album, 2016's “Bible Belt,” on Tulsabased Horton Records.
When she moved to Fayetteville to pursue her master of fine arts in printmaking at the University of Arkansas, her sophomore LP became a sort of love
letter to the only home she'd ever known.
“A lot of the songs were even written earlier in the spring of 2017 when I kind of found out that I was gonna leave Oklahoma, so if you listen through it, you'll be like, `Oh yes, of course, Kalyn's just really homesick
already,” Fay said. “I love Oklahoma so much.”
Although she recorded her new album over three days at Fellowship Hall Sound in Little Rock, Arkansas, she recruited Tulsa-based multiinstrumentalist and producer Jesse Aycock to produce as well as contribute guitar, piano and vocals. She also tapped Oklahoma musicians John Fullbright, Jared Tyler, Carter Sampson and more to play on the
album, titled “Good Company,” and many of them will join her in Tulsa for her release show Saturday at The Colony.
Fay returned to Tulsa to film the sunlit video to her evocative ballad “Come Around” at the historic McBirney Mansion, under the direction of Jeremy Charles of Firethief Studios. She also opted to release “Good Company” through the nonprofit Horton Records.
“`Good Company' ... is the title track of the record, and it references all of the good company I've had in Oklahoma, the good experiences, and then the good company I look forward to having as I move forward.”