LynnAnn Hyde
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LynnAnn Hyde relocated to Portland, OR from Encinitas, CA in 1991. After several weeks of job and apartment hunting, she found herself in the downtown "Park Blocks" of Portland as an unintentional audience member at a Paul deLay concert. "The sound of harmonica had never sounded so good to me" Hyde explained "it was exactly what I needed to hear, and what I needed to feel. When I looked at Paul I saw myself -- I just knew we had shared history". DeLay and Hyde became friends and Hyde vowed to "stay clean, stay sober and learn about harmonica" while her new friend was serving a prison term for drug related offenses.
For three years, LynnAnn practiced and studied harmonica from books and recordings. She started to attend jam sessions in and around Portland, took some harmonica lessons from Arthur Moore and Mark Proulx, and by 1994 had a three-piece combo (Blue Plate Special) that grew into LynnAnn Hyde's "Good Thang" quartet. Although new to music, and naive in managing a musical act, LynnAnn was extremely successful in booking and promoting her shows, garnering a loyal following of friends and fans. In 1996 Hyde recorded two sides for TK/UnderCover with a version of Hand's Off featured on Blues from the Pacific Delta (along with Portlander's Pete Krebbs, Jim Boyer and other alt-Country artists) and began to perform live on KBOO community radio on Joan Semprebon's "Blue Rhythm". In 1997, LynnAnn met Stu Kinzel and they began to perform together as an acoustic Americana duo. They recorded their first acoustic CD Hub Cap Hula (1997), followed by Originals & Traditionals (1998) both acoustic live duo recordings.
By 1999, Kinzel & Hyde were a fixture on the Northwest festival circuit. Since that year, they have performed at nearly every Northwest festival/event of note, including several harmonica exhibitions where Hyde was the only woman player featured.
Hyde took it upon herself to resuscitate a long dead educational program (Blues in the Schools) via the Cascade Blues Association. She also began to work closely with the Water Front Blues Festival and was "given" a small stage at the festival for clinics, workshops and family friendly musical presentations. Hyde began to do children's harmonica clinics, and raised the money through donations from fans to purchase several hundred harmonicas each year for these clinics.
During this time, Kinzel & Hyde also recorded another live in studio CD "Oklahoma Credit Card". This CD is on rotation at XM "BluesVille", DirectTV "Blues Channel" and other radio stations of note. They received "Best Traditional Act" awards 2000-2003 and were inducted into the "Muddy Awards Hall of Fame" and have been nominated as "Best Harmonica", "Best Traditional Act", and/or "Best Acoustic Guitar" by the Cascade Blues Association each year since 2000.
Kinzel & Hyde formed a musical ministry program at Sheridan Correctional Facility from 2001-2004 and also worked closely with Ethos-Inc (Portland's only not-for-profit music education/performing arts center for low-income youth) from 1999-2006. They recorded two other self produced live CD's (Cheetah's Revenge and MORE Originals & Traditionals), founded the Acoustic Roots & Blues Heritage Concerts (2000, 2001, 2002) with help from Portland Saturday Market and the Cascade Blues Association, and two of the concerts were recorded for non-profits and made into CD's through donated funds. Their music has been featured on seven NW compilation CD's including the official Water Front Blues Festival 2003 "Year of the Blues" compilation from Allegro records.
Kinzel & Hyde continue to perform and record their music via Blue Heron Records & Entertainment Group. They are releasing another live CD this year (2008) called "REAL TIME". LynnAnn also teaches harmonica and squeeze-box (a featured instrument at all shows and recordings since 2001) as well as "working musical theory for dummies!" to an ever expanding group of Northwest harmonica enthusiasts."If I can do it, YOU can do it!" is Hyde's favorite saying. She remains clean and sober today and credits her 17 years of sobriety to the harmonica and to her dear friend Paul deLay. LynnAnn Hyde and Stu Kinzel are one of the most well-known and respected husband/ wife teams in the Northwest USA and both artists support community based musical programs by donating their time and talent to events and educational programs.