by Viktorija Krulikas
photo by Brent Fleury

Kellin Watson’s story is one long love affair with music, complete with stormy periods. She debuted on stage at age three at the now-defunct Black Mountain club McDibb’s, singing blues and rock songs with her parents and grandparents. (Her father, Fox Watson, a fiddle and guitar player, toured with Jerry Jeff Walker in the ‘70s). The Black Mountain native began writing songs and playing guitar at 13, taped a demo by 16 and played with a band in college. Half way through a music degree, she switched to a communications major and thought she might get a job in that industry. But two years later, when she was one semester shy of graduating from UNC-Asheville, she had a revelation. Music had been tugging at her, and she wasn’t that jazzed about a communications job anyway. She switched her focus back to music and has been playing and performing nonstop since.

To date, the 27-year-old has released three albums of what she calls “folk indie soul pop.” Her husky voice flows up and down the staff, accompanied by catchy beats, and the result sounds quite eclectic. Yes, she’s a girl with a guitar, which makes her exactly like a crowd of other young singer-songwriters. But she has a “real-deal, blues-rock voice…unlike the sugar-sweetness of today’s constant supply of disposable pop idols,” according to one review of her 2003 album Paper Bird. Her latest release, No Static, is a heady compilation of new material, mixed in with a few older tunes that had been saved in an iPod. Many are collaborations with Asheville producer and composer Aaron Price, the co-creator and onetime owner of Collapseable Records.

Last summer, during a show at Biltmore Estate’s winery, she got the kind of windfall most musicians would trade their favorite six-string for. Alt-rock demigod Billy Corgan, the lead singer for the (now-reunited) Smashing Pumpkins, happened to be sitting in that Biltmore audience and liked Watson’s playing. This kicked off a friendship and musical mentorship that’s likely to open some music-industry doors for Watson. In the meantime, Corgan asked her to line up acts for a charity event this fall at The Orange Peel that will help preserve electronic music pioneer Bob Moog’s legacy. The concert will take place in late October or early November at The Orange Peel.

Watson is already starting to spread her own wings, musically and globally. She sold one of her songs to the Canadian teen-drama TV show Degrassi: The Next Generation. And last August, she was on a CMT reality TV contest, competing with other North Carolina acts to see who got to open for country star Sara Evans. “I’ve been all over the place vertically, but not horizontally,” Watson says, somewhat cryptically, noting that she wants to play in the American West and Europe. No matter what her direction, making big leaps in the music biz is easier when you have friends in high places.