TOPEKA (KSNT) – Multi-instrumentalist Kelly Werts was nominated to the Kansas Music Hall of Fame for the class of 2025.
Werts has been playing traditional and acoustic music across the Midwest for nearly 30 years. He was nominated to the Kansas Music Hall of Fame on August 3, the only nominee from Junction City.
Werts’s unique fingerstyle-guitar playing has earned him national recognition at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas. He has played with the Emmy-award winning Connie Dover, as well as bands The Plaid Family, The Sons of Rayon, and Tiny Flowers. Werts also composed the music for award winning PBS series “Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations” from 1995.
Manhattan band may join Kansas Music Hall of Fame
Werts told 27 News that he began playing music at Junction City Middle School, but when his friend got an electric guitar he was hooked. He got a guitar of his own and immediately began teaching himself. Soon he was playing in all kinds of garage bands around the city. By the time he was in high school, Werts also began playing classical violin. It was the violin that would define his early musical career.
Werts was a classically trained violin player, but when he met Paul Elwood in Wichita, his interests began leaning more towards improvisational music, particularly bluegrass and traditional music across the globe. Elwood and Werts would go on to form Sons of Rayon to pursue, as Werts described, “bluegrass weirdness.”
Even after Sons of Rayon, Werts found himself playing in more traditional music bands like The Plaid Family and Poke Salad Orchestra playing everything from violin, guitar, piano or even spoons. Through a friend of a friend, Werts was asked to write music for the popular Kansas City PBS series “Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations.”
‘The Red Baron’ art exhibit coming to Topeka’s Combat Air Museum
“They had a TV series that was fairly odd, so they picked someone who similarly didn’t fit into categories as well,” Werts said. “I ended up writing the theme music and background music with Randy Mason, who was one of the producers.”
Werts still performs with his bands and solo with the Kansas Creative Arts Commission where he brings music to underserved communities. You can see his band Poke Salad Orchestra perform on Aug. 30 at the Volland Foundation in Volland. Werts also has an album coming out in September with his late band-mate Paul Elwood that will be available on streaming services everywhere.
The Kansas Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be on Nov. 22 at Liberty Hall in Lawrence.
For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here.
