Kerry Grombacher and Aspen Black Duo

Kerry Grombacher and Aspen Black are award-winning solo artists who have worked together as a duo since 2014. Influenced by the English ballad tradition, the string-band music of Black's Appalachian home, and the corridos of the desert Southwest where Grombacher has lived and worked, their songs tell fascinating stories about explorers, settlers, Native Americans, cowboys, lawmen, and outlaws whose lives shaped the American West. Both artists have worked with libraries and arts councils from border to border and coast to coast, and they've appeared at events such as the Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, the Georgia Cowboy Gathering, the Newport Folk Festival, and the Louisiana Folklife Festival.

Kerry Grombacher plays guitar and mandolin. His songs have been featured on the ABC-TV adventure and travel show "Born to Explore," and on the Putumayo World Records CD "Cowboy Playground," which was released in over sixty countries. He has released six albums of original songs, and his songs have been recorded by a list of artists that includes Jim Jones, Belinda Gail, The Texas Trailhands, Gary Prescott, and Trails & Rails. There is a room named after him at the Sands Motel in Grants, New Mexico, on Historic Route 66.

Aspen Black plays guitar and bass. She received a Will Rogers Medallion for her 2018 album of Cowboy Poetry "Tales From the Road," and her "Lovin' the West" album won the Rural Roots Music Commission's 2017 Classic Western CD of the Year award. Her album "Eastern-Western Cowgirl" was also the Rural Roots Music Commission's 2015 Female Country-Western CD of the Year. She was a top five finalist for the International Western Music Association's Female Poet of the Year in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.  She also received the International Western Music Association's Cowboy Poetry CD of the Year award for "Invisibility" in 2015 and 2016 and "Tales from the Road" in 2018.

Be sure to join us before the show for our Volunteer Appreciation Cocktail Hour! All current, former, and aspiring volunteers are welcome.

Programming at the National Willa Cather's Red Cloud Opera House is made possible with the support of the Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment.