Lori King
Queen Bee of Iowa Bluegrass
Lori King, band leader of Lori King and Junction 63, has been a major force in bluegrass in Iowa for more than 20 years. She served as the executive director of the Bluegrass Music Association of Iowa for 11 years, she has produced a number of bluegrass festivals and regional package tours, and in addition to running her own band she and her husband, Joe King, also perform in a country band and as a duo. Regular faces at IBMA’s World of Bluegrass each fall in Raleigh, North Carolina, Lori and Joe are the volunteers who manage the Gig Fair that has been described as “speed dating” for event producers and artists.
The new EP from Lori King and Junction 63, Straight from the Heartland, was produced by Darin Aldridge and engineered by Van Atkins at the Shop Studio in Asheville, North Carolina. Along with Lori and Joe King, the six cuts feature contributions from Brooke and Darin Aldridge, Sammy Shelor, and Samantha Snyder. Recorded in 2022, the most recent single is “Mercy of a Train” by Becky Buller and Bill Whyte, a song about how difficult it can be to leave someone when you’re at the mercy of a late train. “The woman was getting ready to leave her husband, but the train was late,” Lori explained. “So, the marriage was saved because they were at the mercy of the train.”
Lori didn’t discover bluegrass music until she was an adult, but she has been singing since swing choir days in high school and middle school choir. “I met Joe back in 1993 when the ‘boot scootin’ era of country music was going strong,” Lori recalls. “I was 26 years old, and he came up and asked me to dance. He said he played in a bluegrass band, and I said, ‘What’s that? Like Hee Haw?’ I had no idea what bluegrass was. He said, ‘Well, sort of. It has a banjo, a guitar, a bass, a mandolin, and maybe a Dobro or a fiddle’”
Joe was from Drakesville, Iowa, where the Kings live now, and Lori was living in Oskaloosa. They spent a lot of time line dancing at the Red Stallion in Ottumwa that first year, and in 1993 “he took me to my first bluegrass festival,” Lori said. “I fell in love with bluegrass. I loved the camaraderie of the bluegrass community and how the singing and playing came together. People would stand around for hours playing music and having a good time at festivals.”
She started out by watching Joe play at festivals, but about a year later people started handing her a bass fiddle, saying, “Here, hold this. I’ll be right back.” And of course, it would be a long time before the bass player would come back. She quickly learned three chords and started playing.
She spent a few months playing the bass until her fingers bled at festivals in Iowa and northern Missouri including Knoxville, Drakesville and Unionville, IA, Livonia, MO, and all the SPBGMA (Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music) events run by Chuck and Diana Stearman and Tri-State Bluegrass festivals produced by Delbert and Erma Spray. Lori plays the bass with authority and confidence primarily because she learned to play with a working band, Bluegrass Addiction, the group Joe was playing with at the time. Five years later Lori was the bass player with the group. She doesn’t describe herself as “a real fancy bass player,” but rather one who is solid, steady, and who plays loudly enough to be heard in the mix.
Joe King sings a few leads, but Lori is the primary lead vocalist in Junction 63. She has an authentic, low range singing voice, and she doesn’t really sound like anyone else—a good thing! There’s a warm, earnest quality to her tone, and her lyrics are believable. “I listened to Alison Krauss and Rhonda Vincent a lot early on,” Lori said, “but I don’t want to be them. I want to be me. I feel like those women paved the way for people like me, and they each did their own thing.” Lori also enjoys listening to Donna Ulisse, Alecia Nugent, Brooke Aldridge, Dale Ann Bradley and Amanda Smith.
Lori and Joe King married in 1998, a year before taking on the bass role full time with Bluegrass Addiction. The group went through a few different configurations, and in 2014 Lori King and Junction 63 was formed. With Lori’s name out front, audiences knew they were going to get Lori and Joe King, with a good band. In Drakesville, Iowa, there’s a junction of Highway 2 and Highway 63 nearby, at the corner of Missouri and Iowa. “We were at a junction in my career, and we lived on the Junction 63 Highway,” she explained, “so that’s where that came from.” The original line-up included Joe and Lori on guitar and bass with Kevin Amburgey, a harmony-singing, mandolin playing preacher from Ashland, MO and Adam Smith from St. Louis on banjo.
Before deciding to work in bluegrass full-time in 2011, the Kings ran a restaurant called The Bluegrass Cafe for six years in Drakesville (which is why Lori is good at festival concessions and pies), and she worked as a certified substance abuse and gambling addiction counselor after graduating with a degree in psychology and human services. She is a mother of three sons from a previous marriage and a hip grandma of eleven grandchildren.
Lori co-founded the Bluegrass Music Association of Iowa in 2009, but she has been promoting concerts and festivals since 2002. She started out volunteering at events, learning the ropes. It can be a tremendous amount of work to run a festival or plan a concert. What possessed Lori King to want to get involved in event production? “Well, I wanted somewhere to play, for one,” she laughed. “I don’t want to just sit idly by, not having anywhere to perform. When there’s nowhere to go, I make things happen.”
She began by coordinating a package show with other local bands at several theaters in various towns in Iowa. March 2023 was her 21st consecutive year to play at the Iowa Theatre in Bloomfield, for example. Playing venues in the same towns every year is a great way to build a fan base. People get to know the band and come back year after year.
The idea to form the Bluegrass Music Association of Iowa came from a conversation Lori had with radio broadcaster Uncle Billy Dunbar. “We saw the decline of bluegrass in the region. Fewer people were attending festivals, and the demographic of fans was getting older,” she said, “so we joined forces with a woman named Brenda Smith and started up BMAI in 2008.”
Lori was a paid executive director from the beginning through 2020, when the organization wound down due to COVID pandemic challenges. BMAI festivals were small but loyal, generating 150-200 ticket sales a day. Lori represented the group at the IBMA Business Conference in Nashville and Raleigh, and she also went to the national SPBGMA event in Nashville.
The event production Lori does now is under the banner of Lori King Productions. She does the Iowa Theatre Show, band tours, some concerts in collaboration with national touring acts like Jimmy Fortune and Dailey and Vincent, and she has held a show at The Grand Theater in Knoxville, IA. She has produced Iowa festivals in Cedar Falls during Thanksgiving weekend, one in Hampton in June, and one in Drakesville in May. Lori King and Junction 63 recently debuted at the Station Inn in Nashville in December 2022. Lori was nominated in 2016 for an IBMA Momentum Award (Mentor of the Year), and she graduated from Leadership Bluegrass in 2013.
Lori’s involvement in the music industry has always been more than just playing the bass and singing. In addition to producing events and association work, Joe gives lessons on primarily guitar, but also on mandolin, fiddle, bass and banjo, and they both encourage and mentor young musicians in the region. Joe’s students are showcased and invited to perform at the Iowa Theatre concerts and the Drakesville festival. “I think it’s very important to encourage young musicians and singers,” she said. “They are the future.”
The Kings’ country group is called The Midnight Blue Country Band, with a focus on classic country and 1990s country music. They play locally and are now branching out further in the Midwest.
If you’re not familiar with Lori King and Junction 63, give one of their new singles a listen online or on the radio, or catch a live show. They play a variety of songs in the “traditional with a contemporary flair” bluegrass style. The line-up varies slightly, but often includes a combination of David Brack, Kevin Amburgey, Mary Parker or Alex Rifflle. In addition to “Mercy of a Train,” the other songs on the new EP include “It’s Been Raining Since You’ve Gone,” “Between Me and Jolene” written by Kim Fox and Brandon Rickman, “Watching the Corn Grow,” “Come Unto Me,” and “Where Dear Friends Never Part.”
Looking back at a bluegrass career rooted in Iowa, Lori said, “I feel that bluegrass gave me a purpose here in the Midwest, to try to build something here that was declining. I wanted to preserve the heritage of the music from the early SPBGMA and Tri-State Bluegrass days. And although the Bluegrass Music Association of Iowa dissolved when Covid hit, my love for bluegrass music and what it means is something I still believe in. I’m going to continue to do my best to put bluegrass onstage for the people in this region to enjoy and to get people involved. Joe is still teaching, and we’re constantly encouraging young people by showcasing them at our events and at our concerts. We’re committed to doing our part to keep bluegrass alive here in Iowa, as well as touring with the band outside of the region.”
Lori credits her husband as the person who provides “a lot of balance” both in the music business they share and in life. Joe is solid—someone she can always count on. “He definitely has been the person who has helped me accomplish what I’ve done so far. We do this together. It’s not just me—we’re a team. He’s been my right-hand man through everything. He’s the one that helps me pack up all the festival stuff. He loads all the equipment and gets us where we need to go. We’re the first people to arrive and the last ones to leave at the events we produce, and he’s just there through everything, through thick and thin.”
Lori says her goals in bluegrass music are not extravagant. “I’m just a girl who wants to sing and play, and I want people to enjoy my music,” she said—something that may sound easier than it actually is sometimes. But Lori King is not one to give up just because something is difficult or it involves a new technical skill set in social media promotion, for example. Whether it’s organizing a festival, planning a tour, doing her own booking and publicity, or standing onstage with a broad smile and a bass fiddle in her hands leading a fine band, Lori King gets things done.
