The Savage Hearts are a rising bluegrass-meets-honky-tonk band on Colorado's musically innovative Front Range. Featuring string pedagogue Annie Savage along with songwriter/educator Kevin Slick, Kit Simon, and Bianca Bentz, this Southwestern Bluegrass band specializes in high energy performances and has a passion for providing educational outreach. Members of The Savage Hearts band have recorded, performed and produced more than 30 albums. Headed up by fiddler and instructor, Annie Savage the band is hard at work on an album featuring students and professionals, “playing it forward together” in one studio, and all flavored with the spicy southwestern bluegrass sound for which The Savage Hearts are becoming known. The group’s influences range from the Bluegrass Album Band, Hot Rize, and the Quebe Sisters, to the twin fiddling of Bobby Hicks and Kenny Baker, and including the smoldering vocal stylings of Patsy Cline and assorted other Route 66-bound cowgirls. It’s all twin fiddles and twin female vocals, with an explosive mix of Bluegrass, Western Swing and Honky Tonk. It is a sound all its own, a kind of retro fabulous grassy blend of Hank, Patsy, and Johnny with a powerful hit of Sriracha-inspired, Latin-flavored instrumentation, and peppered with engaging stage banter and surprising dance-ability. Annie Savage is a master performer and educator. As an award winning musician from the age of 5, she has an extensive performance background in bluegrass, classical and mariachi styles and a conservatory based music education. Annie recently presented her method for teaching students to jam and improvise at the American String Teacher’s Association and continues to tour and add to her method of teaching, the Savage Fiddler Method. In addition to teaching, Annie has performed with Ricky Skaggs, Aretha Franklin and many others and currently serves as the President of the Colorado Bluegrass Music Society, Director of the Folk Art Revival Music (FARM) School, Board Member for the Colorado Old-Time Fiddler’s Association and Coordinator of Music Goes Public at the City of Lafayette. She balances a passion for her craft with a love for her family. Songwriter, mandolin and rhythm guitar player, Kevin Slick been writing, recording and performing for more than three decades. He is a skilled and versatile artist with roots in traditional and original music in a wide variety of styles from movie scores to world music, electronica to folk and bluegrass. Kevin is a New Mexico state flatpicking champion and has performed with several bands, including the Sony Records project, Neo Suedo. He is a father, visual artist, writer, and teacher who regularly performs guitar, banjo, mandolin, octave mandolin and bouzouki. Kevin is a certified Wernick Method teacher and has served as an educator and researcher in Reading and Writing Project at Columbia, and has played some of the country’s coolest venues, including CBGB in Manhattan’s East Village. Bianca Bentz brings bass and vocals to a new level and still manages to balance music with a husband and 5 kids. She lives in the Boulder area and only discovered her own passion for performing when her youngest child started school, and her daughters started performing with the Young Pickers, the kids’ ensemble that Bianca now helps direct with Annie and Kevin. Kit Simon is a multi-instrumentalist and proud owner of the Olde Town Pickn Parlor. An avid worshipper of the history of jazz and swing that has its roots in American culture, he gravitates to the mix of newer influences that shape today’s roots music. His diverse musical background has taken him as far as the South Pacific for an Armed Forces tour and most recently a tour of Switzerland. His record collection runs the gamut of jazz icons from Louis Arrmstrong to Django Reinhardt. Swing is in his blood and he brings a unique spice to the dobro, guitar and vocals of The Savage Hearts Band. Plans for the upcoming album, Playing It Forward, include feature spots for the band member’s own children and students along with guest fiddlers from the mountains of the West to the studios of Nashville. Special guests will include the award-winning Becky Buller (and her daughter, Romy), Greg Blake, Jeff Scroggins, Ellie Hakanson, with more names to be added. Annie’s daughter, Iris Savage, will join Nina and Maxie Shearer (Bianca’s daughters) along with students of the Savage Fiddler Method. The album is being recorded at E Town, owned by Nick Forster of Hot Rize, and will feature a mix of standards to be sung with some traditional, Latin flavored and straight up honky-tonk tunes --- all delivered with the heart and integrity of The Savage Hearts. The band tips a hat to the mentoring of bluegrass greats like Pete Wernick, Jeff Scroggins and Greg Blake. The Savage Hearts strive to mentor their own students and fans through providing workshops and outreach wherever they roam. In addition to spicy live performances, the band directs a Young Pickers youth ensemble in Colorado.