Coty Hogue Music

"Coty Hogue is such an impressive young talent - an amazing powerful singer and instrumentalist - songwriter. One foot is planted solidly in older traditions and the other moving forward into new musical worlds. She is indeed, as has been described, a young woman with an old soul."
~Grammy nominated Alice Gerrard

There are performers who catch your attention not through glitz and glamor, but through the craftsmanship and quiet beauty of their work. These are the lifers, the ones who amass a body of work, releasing album after remarkable album and do it an everyday way, like other folks cook dinner. Coty Hogue is one of them. She is not the sort of person to draw attention to herself, but when she opens her mouth, you have no choice but to sit up and listen.

Coty began performing in her early twenties, while hosting a popular folk radio show in Bellingham, WA. Over the next few years, Coty played all over, traded songs with anyone she could find, and learned how to play any stringed instrument she could get her hands on. She immersed herself in the Appalachian tradition, studying with Ginny Hawker, and released her first album “To the West” in 2009. A mix of old gems and a few originals, this was her first collaboration with guitarist Aaron Guest (Polecat). The album charted at #1 on the FOLK-DJ charts for the song "Going To The West." Fiddler Kat Bula (Thimble vs. Needle) joined shortly thereafter.

In 2012, Coty released “When We Get to Shore,” a live recording that featured the trio hooking their minimalist arrangements around everything from Bruce Springsteen to the old ballad “Handsome Molly,” and again topping the FOLK-DJ charts.

Coty Hogue's third album “Flight,” released in spring 2016, is a departure from her previous work. It's the most intimate of her records, revealing an artist who has grown a little older and wiser. This growth is clear from the opening track “Run,” with its haunting fiddle flourishes and sense of something sought for, something lost. Coty synthesizes traditional styles while nodding to her contemporary influences, including songs by Lucinda Williams and Stevie Nicks. Continuing to work with her longtime collaborators Kat Bula and Aaron Guest, Coty adds appearances from acclaimed musicians Missy Raines (seven-time International Bluegrass Music Association Bluegrass Bass Player of the Year winner), John Mailander (IBMA Momentum Award nominee), and Molly Tuttle (2017 International Bluegrass Music Association Guitar Player of the Year).

If you get the chance to see Coty Hogue, don't miss it. It's a rare sort of performer who will keep you transfixed through several full sets of music. She's got the simple elegance and understated mastery of her craft that distinguishes much more established players, and it is this- a young voice flavored with the tannins of an old soul- that quietly sets her apart.

Bio by: Jenn Hartman