KPH & The Canary Collective is a people power indie folk project headed by Kaeley Pruitt-Hamm and consists of a roving cast of accompanists and collaborators. The group blends creative and powerful music and story telling, community organizing and art, and captivating solo performance with full band and audience participation. KPH & The Canary Collective’s mission is to inspire dialogue and action around issues ranging from environmental to healthcare to gender justice.
For Kaeley, there is no separation between art and activism or the personal and the political. In 2015, suddenly bedridden from a perplexing and debilitating disease after working five years in the non-profit world as a Seattle and DC-based community organizer, Kaeley turned to music as a way to heal and connect with others in a similar boat. When medical insurance did not cover all of her life-saving medical treatment, her friends and family supported her and fundraised online, saving her life. In order to count on monthly income so she could cover the monthly costs of her Lyme disease medicine not covered by insurance, Kaeley created a Patreon page. Patreon is a website in which fans of musicians pay artists a monthly “subscription” fee in exchange for new songs Kaeley posts every month. She released an EP “Hi From Pillows” in 2017 with Local Woman Records. Last year, Kaeley received a grant from King County 4Culture and an award from Allied Arts Foundation to create her first official full-length album, “The Canary Collective: Vol 1.” Kaeley collaborated with poets and musicians such as Luz Elena Mendoza of Mexican-American band Y La Bamba and Nataly Dawn of Pomplamoose to make a Pete Seeger and Joni Mitchell-inspired collage of poetry, songs, and TED Talk quotes exploring themes around healing our bodies and our planet. She released the album solely to patrons in September and, leading up to the public release of her album in February, she’s visiting people’s homes throughout the West Coast in a “Canary Sunrise House Show” tour, combining music, story telling, and advocacy encouraging everyone to get involved with youth-led environmental organization Sunrise Movement. They’ve shared the stage with some of their biggest influences and heroes Y La Bamba, Lucy Dacus, Kyle Morton (Typhoon), MIrah, and Julianna Barwick and, with improvement in Kaeley’s health, they look forward to touring with the release of “The Canary Collective” in 2020.