“She has a quality that really transcends time and fashion.”

Celebrated for her profoundly observational lyrics, her “homespun sensibility,” and a voice that curls like a croon from a gramophone, Melissa Carper plays old school country music that resonates across time and place. Carper’s repertoire weaves together the threads of old-time, bluegrass, western swing, jazz, and blues that all intertwined to form American country music, back in the days before the recording industry drew artificial lines and slapped on race-based genre labels. Veteran Nashville musician Chris Scruggs highlighted Carper’s versatile traditionalism when he dubbed her “HillBillie Holiday,” declaring, “She’s as good as it gets. She has a quality that really transcends time and fashion.”

Melissa Carper’s childhood in North Platte, Nebraska, was filled with country music. She has fond memories of lying on the living room carpet with her head under the family stereo console, listening to her parents’ beloved Hank Williams and Loretta Lynn albums. From an early age, the Carper siblings sang gospel music together at churches and retirement homes, and when the kids were old enough for instruments, their mother organized them into a country band. Having taken up upright bass in 4th grade, 12-year-old Melissa naturally became the electric bassist. A childhood playing country music until midnight on the circuit of Nebraska’s rural Elks, Eagles, and American Legion halls may have been out of the ordinary, but she reflects that “my parents were dreamers and they believed in all of us and our musical abilities.” Her high school band director, himself a bassist, was another mentor, and with his encouragement, she attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln on a classical music scholarship.