Kip Calahan
Her song "What Cowboy Means" won Song of the Year honors at the Western Music Association's Awards in Albuquerque.
Her album "Dust Devil Angel" won the Academy of Western Artists Association's "Will Rogers Cowboy Award" for Best Western Album of the Year 2005
Whether from her tours of the United States and Japan, or the airplay she has received on XM Satellite Radio, or her chart action in Germany and France, people around the globe are coming around to this feisty, vivacious Western singer and songwriter!
Kip splits her time between caring for her daughter Kyli, feeding the ranch hands, writing songs, recording and performing live at western music gatherings and concerts throughout the west.
She learned the artistic side of the music business at an early age performing in high school musical productions of "Oklahoma", "Cabaret", "Oliver", and "Brigadoon". At age 18 she was playing in a country band in Las Cruces. She spent four years in Nashville working with now-recording artists like, Jo Dee Messina, Tim McGraw, Tracy Lawrence and others. During a respite from Nashville, while visiting her mom Karen in Rodeo NM she met the "cowboy of her dreams", Richard. Richard's dad, Lonnie, was foreman of a ranch in southwest New Mexico south of Animas and Richard was one of the ranch-hands. Richard and Kip have lived on the ranch ever since, later joined by daughter Kyli. When Lonnie passed away Richard became foreman of the ranch.
The lyrics for "What Cowboy Means" were taken from a poem written by "Aunt Susan" about Calahan's late father-in-law when he was the first cowboy to be inducted into the Hidalgo County "Cowboy Hall of Fame" in Lordsburg, NM. The poem touched Calahan's heart and she later added a few verses and a chorus to what became the WMA "Song of the Year" for 2004.
Kip Calahan renders her music very, VERY well! Her song "What Cowboy Means" won Song of the Year honors at the Western Music Association's annual awards banquet held in Albuquerque. She has also won Academy of Western Artists Female Vocalist of the Year and Western Music Association Crescendo (Rising Star) Award. In concerts, at fairs, rodeos, cowboy gatherings and many other venues, Kip provides both high energy professionalism and authenticity ... a distinctly precious rarity.
As Kip Calahan continues to ply her creative energies to the production of Western Music, she is sure to draw constant inspiration from her chosen existence, or as she puts it, I live a life most people can only dream about!
She has traveled widely, performed at dozens of fairs, festivals and cowboy gatherings and shared the stage with such artists as Alabama, The Judds, Merle Haggard, Ian Tyson and Baxter Black.