Kerry Grombacher

Kerry Grombacher writes contemporary western songs and plays guitar and mandolin. His song, Range of the Buffalo, was named 2021 Song of the Year by the International Western Music Association.

In the spirit of the troubadours of old, Kerry Grombacher’s songs paint vivid portraits and tell the fascinating stories of working cowboys and old camp cooks, roadside motels and prisons, wildland firefighters, cattle rustlers and wolf trappers – the landmarks and denizens of the west.  You’ll find Kerry at Cowboy Poetry Gatherings and Folk Festivals, singing his songs, playing mandolin as a sideman, and picking in the jam sessions and around the campfires until the last song is sung.

Kerry was born in Kansas and has lived and worked in Texas, New Mexico, and Oregon. That’s taught him to admire the men and women who still work cattle and to respect the traditions of the West. His songs have found great acceptance among the poets, musicians, and fans who have heard him play, and they’ve been recorded by other western artists, including Jim Jones, Belinda Gail, The Texas Trailhands, Duke Davis, Trails & Rails, Earl Gleason, Ed Stabler, and Gary Prescott. One of his songs appears on the 2012 children’s compilation, Cowboy Playground, released by Putumayo World Music.

Kerry has sung his songs at events as varied as the Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering, the Newport Folk Festival, Cowboy Songs & Range Ballads (Cody, WY) and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. As a sideman, he’s played mandolin with a list of western performers that includes Chuck Pyle, Belinda Gail, Joni Harms, Wylie Gustafson, Eli Barsi, Ken Overcast, and Jean Prescott. Kerry sang at the dedication of the last memorial marker on the Chisholm Trail in Oklahoma, and he was featured on The Big Roundup website, www.cowboypoetry.com.

Grombacher regularly plays at performing arts centers, coffeehouses, house concerts and other music venues, and he’s performed on the syndicated television show, Louisiana Jukebox, and on River City Folk, a music program that’s heard nationally on public radio stations and on Sirius/XM Satellite Radio.  In 2001, he gave a concert beneath the neon signs on the parking lot of the Sands Motel on Historic Route 66 in Grants, New Mexico and the owner named a room for him! His 2012 “Highway 281 Troubadour Tour” followed that US Highway from the Canadian border to Mexico, with stops along the way for concerts.

Kerry’s recordings include Range of the Buffalo, It Sings in the Hi-Line, Sands Motel, Riding for the Brand, Dreams of New Orleans, and Home to the West. He’s a member of the International Western Music Association and Folk Alliance International, and he endorses Elixir Guitar and Mandolin Strings.

Kerry Grombacher                                          kgrombacher@yahoo.com

512-296-7833 (cell)                                        www.kgrombacher.com