Ken Pomeroy

Ken Pomeroy arrived to many ears, seemingly out of the blue, with her 2025 Rounder Records debut, Cruel Joke. The album, with its hushed tones and intimate nature, felt like being welcomed into a secret world: familiar but fresh, flashes of darkness filled with hope, and the kind of songwriting that opens up with repeated listens. A singer-songwriter in the purest sense, Pomeroy’s observations tap into an emotionality steeped in universal truths: longing, freedom, and the joys and heartaches of home. Raised in Moore, Oklahoma and now calling Tulsa home, the twenty-three-year-old was no secret to the area’s growing music community where she had been performing since she was a teenager. With the release of Cruel Joke (May ’25) Pomeroy and long-time collaborator, Dakota McDaniel, spent much of the year on tour. By year’s end, Cruel Joke had found its audience, making its way on numerous end-of-year lists with NPR’s Ann Powers calling Pomeroy a “generational talent”. 2026 finds Pomeroy completing work on her next record and touring extensively throughout North America while heading to the UK and Europe for her first dates overseas. She states: “A lot of really cool things are happening, but it hasn’t set in. I haven’t had time to bask in it. Even when I started playing music, I never thought, ‘I’m a musician. I chose this life.’ I feel like something way above me pointed at me and said, ‘Okay, here’s your path.’ And I’ve just been following it kind of blindly ever since.”