KinFolk is the Fleming family – Peggy, Ken, Kevin, and Katie – who have combined forces to become one the newest and freshest pure drop Irish trad bands in Texas.
Peggy and Ken are 40-plus-year veterans of the Irish music scene in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, having performed widely with Tinker’s Dam, Waifs & Strays, and Jigsaw in venues that include the North Texas Irish Festival (NTIF), the Milwaukee Irish Festival, Kerrville Folk Festival, the Texas Folklife Festival, Poor David’s Pub, the NFL Pub, Tipperary Inn, Trinity Hall Pub, the Celt Irish Pub, and countless private events. Together they helped create the NTIF and the Southwest Celtic Music Association with Ken serving as their first director and president respectively. Ken is also the founder/director of the O’Flaherty Irish Music Retreat and founder/executive director of the Traditional Irish Music Education Society which currently employs the volunteer skills of the whole family.
They are now joined by their children, Kevin and Katie, who grew up hearing their parents perform the music to the extent that it couldn’t help becoming ingrained. As adults, they returned to the trad fold, quickly honing their skills, Kevin on flute, tinwhistle, low whistle and bodhrán, and Katie on tenor banjo and mandolin. Peggy, whose mainstay remains the fiddle, recently added the concertina to her wheelhouse, and Ken, having handed his banjo duties to his daughter, now holds forth on button accordion, bouzouki, and guitar.
KinFolk’s repertoire is a lively blend of jigs, reel, hornpipes, polkas, and marches with waltzes, airs, and songs added for good measure. Their logo is a family tree, with the trad roots going deep and the limbs branching out to reach others with their love of the music.