Katie Laur

American journalist, bluegrass and jazz singer and bandleader, songwriter, and radio broadcast personality . Born in Paris, Tennessee. Lives in Cincinnatti, Ohio. Katie Laur got into professional bluegrass with the Appalachian Grass and then formed the Katie Laur Band, becoming one of the first women to lead a bluegrass group on the national festival circuit. With her recording of “T for Texas,” she won acceptance for female singers on bluegrass radio and paved the way for later female bandleaders such as Lynn Morris and Rhonda Vincent. She cut three bluegrass albums for Vetco in the mid to late 1970s, a jazz album for Octev, Vetco’s sister label, in 1982, and more recently, a bluegrass CD in 1997 for Jim-Bob Records. Her first LP featured the first-ever glamour shot cover in bluegrass music. She formed the Katie Laur All Girl Bluegrass Band in the late 1990s, and recorded one CD with them. She has written for numerous Cincinnati and Ohio newspapers and magazines and co-hosted with Wayne Clyburn a long-running and popular bluegrass deejay show on WNKU, as well as being active in the Cincinnati arts community. Katie Laur was a life member of the Board of Directors of Bgrass, Inc. In 2008, she was awarded an Ohio Heritage Fellowship.