Kristina Olsen

Kristina Olsen’s recordings and concert appearances reflect in part the environment of her youth amid the rich musical scene of 1960s San Francisco, where she absorbed blues, psychedelic rock, folk, and numerous additional genres. Equally at ease rendering an original acoustic ballad or delivering a raw, traditional blues number associated with Robert Johnson, she performs on guitar and piano while also commanding thirteen further instruments, nearly all of which appear across her discography. That body of work blends her own material with well-known traditional pieces and blues selections.

Raised in the center of Haight-Ashbury during the 1960s, Olsen has maintained her home in Venice, California, since the late 1980s. A pivotal early opportunity arrived when she won the New Folk contest at the 1985 Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas and there encountered fellow folk-blues singer Michelle Shocked. She contributes hammer dulcimer to Shocked’s PolyGram debut, Short Sharp Shocked. Olsen steadily strengthened her standing through appearances in coffeehouses and at folk festivals across the United States and Canada, eventually securing a contract with Philo Records in the early 1990s. Her self-titled debut appeared in 1992; subsequent Philo/Rounder releases comprise Love, Kristina (1993), Hurry on Home (1995), and Live from Around the World (1997). Each album highlights her command as multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. On her most recent collection she addresses topical subjects in tracks such as “Gay Friends,” “Prop. 187,” and “TV Free America,” whereas earlier efforts such as Love, Kristina foreground her jazz-inflected, blues-oriented approach.