Kelly Jo Mitchell is based in Minneapolis, a city with elevated streets in the sky that more often than not confuse her. But she grew up in a small town in Wisconsin with no streetlights, no fast-food franchises and a great family. Listening to her dad harmonize to Eric Clapton classics and Perry Como’s Catch a Falling Star on cassettes while riding on his lap in a beat-up blue station wagon is her first musical memory. Her father sang back-up vocals for a handful of Wisconsin folk singers. The long car rides were his rehearsals and Kelly Jo’s nesting ground to hone in on her natural musical abilities. The oldest of four and the only alto, she and her two younger sisters began singing along with their father. This introduction to folk music pushed Kelly Jo toward a microphone.
She took center stage for the first time after getting the leading role as Abigail Adams in her fifth-grade musical, Dear Abby. By 11, she and her father were singing the national anthem at local sporting events, county fairs, and community fundraisers. Her two younger sisters quickly joined the duo, and the Mitchell Girls--and their dad-- were singing regularly in three-part harmony a capella, and opening for country singers the Kinlay Sisters. Within a few years, Kelly Jo had already sung the National Anthem at a Milwaukee Brewer’s Game televised nationwide on TBS.
By her first year in high school, Kelly Jo ventured into songwriting. A self-proclaimed band nerd, she spent her lunch hours in practice rooms playing out-of-tune pianos writing songs and performing for her classmates. At 14, she wrote her first song, Heaven Filled With Gold, featured on her first acoustic six-track CD in 2004, for a band teacher who pushed her and inspired her to pursue music. She has been writing tirelessly since.
Within the last four years, Kelly Jo has shared the stage with local favorites, Kid Dakota, Adam Levy, The Twilight Hours, Breanne Duren, Cancer, The Great Upset, Aria Souder, Art Vandalay and many more igniting fans with her quirky stage presence and personable demeanor.
