Cathy Ponton King’s resume includes over 20 years of singing blues and original music on the East Coast with a band that brings the house down with her stellar band and sweet, soulful and passionate vocals. She also plays a mean telecaster guitar and doesn’t just resort to all the same songs every other band plays but she constantly writes songs and chooses more obscure rhythm and blues songs from her knowledge of the music. In college she met and spent time with Muddy Waters and decided to form an electric blues band based on Muddy’s music. Cathy quit her job at ABC NEWS Washington Radio Bureau, and for the next 8 years toured up and down the east coast and opened for or sang on stage with Albert King, Willie Dixon, Koko Taylor, James Cotton, Paul Butterfield, Roomful of Blues, Albert Collins, Johnny Copeland, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Nappy Brown, Luther “Guitar” Jr., Bob Margolin, Jimmy Thackery, Bobby Parker, Eddie Clearwater, Sonny Landreth, Marcia Ball, and Buddy Guy. Her release of “Lovin’ You Right” in the ‘90’s featured all lead guitar from the guitar master Jimmy Thackery who also co-produced with her husband Jeff King and studio owner Ray Tilkens. It also included the late great Joe Stanley who was one of the last great honky tonk sax players, whose resume included everyone from Danny Gatton to Bobby Darin. Washington’s Bill Starks contributes a great New Orleans beat on the keyboards. And Jeff King wrote the radio friendly “You’re Lookin’ Away”. This CD put her on the map for soulful and heartfelt blues and the CD has sold thousands of copies and brought listeners in all parts of the country and in many cities in Europe. UNDERTOW is the newest release (2007) and it is a multi-genre CD with a surprise on every song. Again produced by her husband Jeff King, who also wrote three of the songs, with BIAS RECORDING Studio’s Jim Robeson on production and engineering, (Jim Robeson has been honored twice with Grammy awards for his studio production ) the CD flows from the powerful gospel blues opener featuring a hot horn section “Little Bridge” (which is a play on words for her name “PONTON”, meaning Bridge in French), to more heartfelt gorgeous ballads like “Listen to the Soft Sound” and “Let Me Be the One”; a dark snarling nasty guitar rock song about the Katrina disaster-“Dark Shroud”, then a Memphis soul song in the vein of Al Green- “Comfort and Blessings”, and a 1940’s inspired swing song with John Jensen on trombone- “Since You’ve Gone”, and an In-Your-Face nasty gutbucket blues, “Things Turned Out That Way”. When a listener thinks they know what this CD is about, the next song brings them to another place with the heart and guts to say it. Important factor here: in a genre too weighed down by cover bands, all the songs here are original. They are definitely based in the blues and some of the songs could easily have been part of the famous “Stax” label. And the sweet ballads could be on almost any radio format. This is a gem of a collection of love and loss that is true in lyrics and feeling to the passion in the writer of the songs with surprising instrumentation and joy throughout.