Carly Ritter

With a personal take on country and folk that is distinctly California in nature, singer and songwriter Carly Ritter wouldn't have been out of place in the 1960s pop and folk world of artists like Jackie DeShannon or Buffy Sainte-Marie, and, as a graduate of Vassar, she has been as likely to cite Soren Kierkegaard as an influence on her songwriting as Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, or any of the other likely candidates. The daughter of actor John Ritter and the granddaughter of Tex Ritter, her childhood was one where creativity was encouraged. She was raised in Los Angeles and attended high school in Santa Monica, then left for New York following graduation, attending Vassar and spending her junior year abroad in Scotland. There she discovered and began to study Scottish folk music, eventually tracing it forward to the kitchen-sink approach of American folk music. Returning to the States, she finished school and drifted back west to California, where she reconnected with childhood friend and musician Joachim Cooder, the son of Ry Cooder. Together they began to shape her songwriting and sound. Her debut album, the self-titled Carly Ritter, which included guest contributions not only from Joachim but also his father Ry, as well as Robert Francis and Francis' sister Juliette Commagere (a member of the synth pop band Hello Stranger), appeared from Vanguard Records in 2013.