The first thing you notice about Door County singer-songwriter Katie Dahl is she’s pretty low key. She doesn’t call a lot of attention to herself before she opens her mouth to sing. But once she does sing, you can’t help but be mesmerized. Her voice is rich and clear, and her songs evoke such a sense of people and place.
Dahl's career was in part made possible because of a winter accident. She was going to be an oboist, but during her first year in college in southern Minnesota, she slipped on the ice and broke her wrist.
"Suddenly I couldn’t play the oboe because I had a set of fingers that didn’t work," she says. "But I could strum with my cast the strings of a guitar and with my healthy hand learn the chord shapes."
Six albums later, Dahl is very much a part of Wisconsin's music scene. She has toured on her own as well as with folks like Peter Mulvey and Dar Williams. And it was on her way to start a tour that brought Dahl south from her home in Door County last year. She stopped by our studio then to give us a preview of her latest album, Wildwood:
