Born in the traditional blues/jazz hotbed of Kansas City, Roots R&B / Americana recording artist/songwriter Kelley Hunt's musical education began with the purest of references - the sound of her mother's voice singing jazz standards and her New Orleans grandmother's voice singing Gospel music in the tradition of that great music city. Name a long list of piano players and singers from the blues/jazz/Gospel/roots R&B traditions from Kansas City, St. Louis and New Orleans and Hunt has probably studied them. And those influences have organically crept their way into Hunt's artistic psyche. Witness now an artist whose righteous roots are fully intact within a unique, contemporary, powerful and hard-won yet still-evolving identity as a writer, keyboardist, singer and dominating live performer.  Hunt's newest generation of music juxtaposes the traditional with the exploratory in ways that cross boundaries with ease and inspire roots music tastes from purist to eclectic. She's a veteran of over 1500 live performances and 150 international festival stages - from a long list of jazz/blues events to premier North American pan-genre festivals like Seattle's legendary Bumbershoot Festival and the Austin City Limits Music Festival - testimonial to the broad musical net she casts. Her credits include 3 CDs in international distribution with a fourth release scheduled for late 2007/early 2008, a host of television & network and satellite radio appearances, blues, noncom and A3 format spins in 800+ domestic and international radio markets, 6 times on American Public Media¹s acclaimed “A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor”, song placements in major and independent feature film releases, an on-screen acting, songwriting and co-scoring role in celebrated director/filmmaker Kevin Willmott¹s upcoming indie feature “Bunker Hill” and studio credits involving A-list studio musicians and Grammy award-winning producers.

As a workshops presenter and teacher Hunt has served 5 years on the faculty of The Augusta Heritage Center Workshops at Davis and Elkins College in Elkins, WV, co-founded the Brave Voice workshops series with acclaimed poet/writer Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and given dozens of workshops and master classes at all levels - from grade school to guest artist workshops and performances at Boston¹s prestigious Berklee College of Music.

She has been honored numerous times for her generous commitments to benefit causes with special recognition in 2005 for 15-straight years of support for The Douglas County Aids Project. She is a 2007 recipient of the State of Kansas / Kansas Arts Commission¹s Governor¹s Award for the Arts and is a 2006 inductee into the Kansas Music Hall of Fame.