Amythyst Kiah

Amythyst Kiah was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States. Her father (who is also her tour manager) sang and played percussion in a band in the 1970s. Her mother sang in the church growing up. She attended a creative arts high school and taught herself to play guitar. When she was 17 her mother committed suicide, and singing at her funeral was Kiah's third public performance.

Kiah is a graduate of East Tennessee State University, where she completed the Bluegrass, Old Time, and Country Music Studies program and joined the school's marquee old-time band.

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Why These Four Banjo-Playing Women Resurrected the Songs of the Enslaved

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Music producer and composer Dirk Powell pointed to the back of the control room. I was filming him at Cypress House, his studio in Louisiana. “Rhiannon was sitting right there on that green Naugahyde couch, and I was in that little room playing the guitar, and she had the talkback mic.”