Gathering of the Tribe

Kevin and Katie McKrell

by David Malachowski and photographs by Avalon Peacock, September 28, 2007

It’s late August, the height of the racing season, and singer/songwriters Kevin and Katie McKrell are sitting on the patio of the Parting Glass, an Irish-style pub in the heart of Saratoga Springs. They’re there to play a show, but right now they’re watching the show as the summer party people file in after a day of losing or winning at the track.

For Kevin, it’s just one more night at the Parting Glass, a venue he’s played once or twice nearly every month for 25 years. But while there’s something intimately familiar about the scene, there is also something new. For years, when you said “The McKrells,” you were talking about a Celtic-bluegrass band that livened up pubs and festivals around the Capital Region and beyond. Today, the McKrells means something much different. The old band is gone, and earlier this year Kevin teamed up with his daughter, Katie, whose own music career has shown promise for some time, but had lately stalled. Father and daughter have come together now when both are at turning points, in a sense reinventing themselves through their collaboration with each other.
At 52, Kevin has the ruddy complexion of a man who’s seen many miles on the roads of a few continents. For three decades, he’s played every Irish pub and dive bar from here to Hell’s Kitchen and back, along with many in Canada, Ireland, and Europe. He once played Carnegie Hall to a standing ovation as opening act to the Furey Brothers. He’s been a permanent fixture on the regional music scene as well, first in the late ’70s with Donnybrook Fair, a high-energy, crack-harmony Celtic outfit. That group was followed by namesake band The McKrells, whose virtuoso players Kevin led through three albums. The quality of Kevin’s work has long garnered the respect of his peers, in praise money can’t buy.

“Kevin’s an anchor, a master. He’s not gonna not do quality work” says Michael Eck of WAMC’s Performance Place. “A veracity informs what he does, and it always comes from the right places.” Eck gives the nod to daughter Katie being brought in to the act. “I think it’s positive for Katie joining now, after being on her own. By doing that, they come together as peers.”

Kevin agrees that the change is the right move at the right time. The permanent-band gig has its rewards, but McKrell needed a break from The McKrells. “Once you’re in a band with guys, all of a sudden this false loyalty thing develops. I go to Europe five times a year, and that became an issue—‘why aren’t we going?’ Everything you do, you’re attached at the hip. They [were] brilliant players, but I just wanted to move on. It ran its course; you lose steam.”