THE SHORT OF IT

(SHORT BIO)

Anna Kline is a songwriter, musician, and poet based in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky.

A self-professed Southern culture junkie, Anna grew up in North Mississippi in the small town of Hernando, located between the Chickasaw river bluffs of Memphis and Delta farmlands—an area with a complex history that yielded its legendary food and arts culture.  

Anna explores the world through music, words, photography, and video, facilitating culture & heritage projects and programs that aid in the preservation and promotion of Southern music and folkways.

As the Business Development Director of the International Bluegrass Music Association, she oversees sponsorships, and facilitates innovative partnerships and programming for IBMA and its yearly event IBMA World of Bluegrass®. She is co-coordinator of the 2024 Roots Revival: Black String Band Symposium presented by the Banjo Gathering and IBMA.

As a musician and songwriter, she toured the Southeast and Europe for over ten years, appearing at MerleFest, Bristol Rhythm and Roots, CountryFest in Belgium—and more. With her husband, John Looney, their acoustic duo Grits & Soul appeared and performed on Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern (2017). She also performed on an episode of KET’s Kentucky Life with her friend, Linda Jean Stokley of The Local Honeys.

Anna and John released a new album in 2021 with her new band, Swift Silver, a name inspired by one of the earliest Appalachian mountains legends about John Swift and his lost silver mine.

Swift Silver’s music was recently featured (2022) on Season 5 of John T. Edge’s show True South on the SEC Network. They are regular musical collaborators with many Kentucky and regional musicians.

In the spring of 2023, Anna was part of a Kentucky Roundtable discussion for Ari Wallach’s PBS series A Brief History of the Future. Advocates and community leaders were brought together to discuss how personal experiences led them to the work they do, what community looks like, why we chose to stay, and what we are building to create a better tomorrow. “A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FUTURE asks us all – how can we become the great ancestors the future needs us to be?” The show is now airing and can be found on your local PBS station website.

As a proud Kentucky Arts Council Community Scholar and Kentucky Arts Council Performing Artist Directory member, she continues to explore the diversity of the Southern experience in the Appalachian region through speaking and writing opportunities, with the sharing of stories through oral histories and video projects, and through song with regional musical performances. 

She is currently honing her craft in the year-long Poetry Gauntlet workshop at The Carnegie Center and is in the midst of a co-writing album project called Thinking Like a Mountain.

When she isn’t writing or performing as Swift Silver, you can find her huddled in a group of late-night bluegrass pickers, onstage with Don Rogers and The Apostlebillies, or singing harmonies with The Local Honeys.

MEAT AND THREE

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Anna studied music business and film at the University of Memphis and in 2004, decided to focus on gathering experience when famed Southern soul, blues, and gospel label, Malaco Records hired her to work in their music licensing department.  Anna became versed in the ways as she became familiar with the legendary Malaco and Muscle Shoals Sound song catalogs, drafting contracts for television, film, and beyond. She also wrote blog posts full of everyday stories and news of the artists and songwriters that walked the halls.

Her freelance writing journey began just a couple of years later in 2006 with regularly published articles in the Jackson Free Press and DeSoto Magazine, which focused on local music, food, and Southern culture topics; and, not too long thereafter, she was asked to write a monthly food and restaurant column in Portico Jackson Magazine.

In 2009, theMississippi Development Authority, Division of Tourism hired Anna to research and write the Mississippi Culinary Trail, an online resource for visitors, highlighting the foodways traditions and local hot-spot eateries across the state of Mississippi.

During her time at MDA, she worked on many special projects: she coordinated the first Mississippi music showcase at SXSW, was a location scout for the Mississippi Film Office, shot and edited a short documentary food film, and worked on numerous culture and heritage projects including the African-American Heritage sights along the Mississippi Freedom Trail. 

Over the summer of 2011, Anna had the opportunity to research story segment ideas for the Mississippi Public Broadcasting special television feature The Choctaw Journey, which profiled the history and cultural preservation of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

In 2012, the path took her in another direction when she took the plunge as a full-time musician and songwriter with her partner, John Looney, and their band, Grits & Soul. They wrote their first few songs together and eventually relocated to Asheville, North Carolina. It was there the duo immersed themselves in Appalachian culture and bluegrass music, released an album, and extensively toured the Southeast region. They played notable festivals such as MerleFest and Bristol Rhythm and Roots. They were also invited to perform at CountryFest in Belgium and played shows in Italy and France. 

In 2015, they moved to John's native Kentucky, where they continue to perform regularly. The duo appeared on an episode of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern (2017) on The Travel Channel about The Daniel Boone Wilderness Trail. Anna also appeared on an episode of KET’s (Kentucky Educational Television) Kentucky Life with her friend, Linda Jean Stokley of The Local Honeys, in a segment about songwriter Jim Ford.

Her freelance tourism work took her to Eastern Kentucky with projects that included the town of Prestonsburg, Kentucky, where she wrote monthly blog posts and content for the town’s travel guide, and she worked on website content and blog posts for Visit Jessamine in Nicholasville, Kentucky.

In October 2018, Anna completed a Kentucky Arts Council Community Scholars Program certification. This program “trains members of a community in documentation, interpretation, and dissemination of their unique local cultural resources and traditional art forms.”

Inspired by the Community Scholars program she created the Mt. Sterling’s Small Town America festival’s Story Stage, a celebration of community highlighting stories, songs, and foodways traditions two years in a row.

Anna and John formed a new band project in 2020, Swift Silver, and released their self-titled album in June 2021.  Three songs from that album were recently featured on Season 5 (2022) on John T. Edge’s show True South on the SEC Network alongside Kentuckians SG Goodman and The Local Honeys.

She also has a co-writing credit with her friend Montana Hobbs on The Local Honeys’ latest self-titled release (2022), “Last Mule in the Holler.”

Anna’s work with IBMA continues to build on her experience in the music industry and culture and heritage training. As Business Development Director, she oversees sponsorship and programming and helps coordinate IBMA’s yearly industry conference and street festival, World of Bluegrass.

In her writing life, she is an active poet, currently in the Poetry Gauntlet at the Carnegie Center in Lexington. In her musical life, Anna is working on a co-writing album project titled, Thinking Like a Mountain.