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Award winning Kayleigh Dawn or Kay D, as we know her, is one of our best Country ladies with a true Country voice. Having entered a talent contest in the mid-1990s it would be 10 years before she realised she wanted to become a Country singer getting her first paid Country gig in 2006. She launched her solo career the following year and after fronting her own Redneck Rodeo band for several years it wasn’t long before awards started coming her way.  In 2016 she won Female Vocalist Of The Year in the inaugural CCN awards.
Since then, she has had prolonged periods out of the limelight. In January 2019 she took two years off for maternity leave but a few months after the birth of her son Jace, we were all locked down by covid.  Last summer she was forced to take four months off with Muscle Tension Dysphonia a voice disorder that occurs when the muscles around the larynx are too tight, making it difficult to speak.  She told me she thought she might never sing again so it was good to see her back at Hickory Lake on 12th January and fighting fit, a couple of people commented that she is singing better than ever.
I last saw Kay at the club on 1 August 2021. I have always liked female singers as you get to hear a good selection of girls songs that male artists tend to avoid. She kicked off tonight with Scooter Lee’s Ribbon of Highway which coaxed the dancers onto the floor. This was followed by Nancy Hays’ Come Dance With Me, the title song from Nancy’s second album released in 2002.  The song is particularly popular with line dancers at the moment and won a Crystal Boot line dance award in 2024 at Norbreck Castle in Blackpool. I wish we heard a few more Nancy Hays songs in the clubs.
A few other songs that stood out for me in the first set included Carlene Carter’s Every Little Thing, Jaden Hamilton’s Heaven’s Jukebox, Tracy Byrd’s Heaven In My Woman’s Eyes  and the first of several Shania Twain songs Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under and Pam Tillis songs, When You Walk in the Room. Hickory Lake members like a mixture of styles and Kay gave us a good balance between old and newer including a nice ballad from Anne Murrey, Just Another Woman In Love which I haven’t heard for years. She finished the first set with another old classic, Tammy Wynette’s Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad.
Kay asked for requests early in the evening and she started working her way through them in the second set. These included Josh Mirenda’s Til The Neon’s Gone, Keith Urban’s Somebody Like You, Troy Cassar-Daley’s Things I Carry Around and Darryl Worley’s Messed Up In Memphis. There were plenty more old favourites including Lynn Anderson’s Rose Garden, Dolly Parton’s Old Flames and James House’s This Is Me Missing You. There was more from Shania Twain with Any Man Of Mine and from Pam Tillis’ Blue Rose Is.  Always good to hear a few lesser known songs like Anne Wilson’s Christian Country song Mamas and Bekka & Billy’s Patient Heart which I haven’t heard for 30 years.
My pick of the evening was Dixie Chicks’ Tonight the Heartache’s on Me. As the evening drew to a close, Kay sung Cody Johnson’s ‘Til You Can’t which seems to be one of the most popular songs around at the moment. This was followed by Jill King’s Can’t Let Go – as a dance, Train Wreck seems as popular now as it was several years ago. Kay took us out to generous and well deserved applause with another early 90s classic Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Down At The Twist And Shout. I had a great night and I am sure everyone else did as well. Congratulations to Kay on her recent engagement to Helen James.

See below a couple of songs I videoed on my phone