News/Thoughts

Back To Her Roots

The northern most reaches of Appalachia; the hills of southwestern Pennsylvania, were the music launching pad for Cindy “Cindy G” Giejda. She started playing folk and bluegrass as a teenager. Her father, a bluegrass fiddle player himself, encouraged her to play guitar. Cindy recalls her dad helping her decide on an instrument for the school band when she was in fifth grade. He said, “Why don’t you choose an instrument that you don’t need a whole marching band to play along with you?”

“So I started playing guitar in fifth grade – that was it – I was so hooked,” she recalled. “I remember after I learned the three basic chords of G, C, and D, I was already writing songs.”

Cindy eventually moved away, and branched out as a musician playing rhythm and blues and rock ‘n roll music professionally for many years. She toured from NYC to LA with her Pittsburgh band, The Flashcats, who revived the career of R&B legend Bull Moose Jackson. She performed professionally on into the eighties, and nineties before taking a break and settling into civilian life.

Her bluegrass roots and love of songwriting was never far away though. “After my son was born I started getting the musical itch again,” she recalled. “I told my husband that I thought I wanted to go back to playing bluegrass music. You can grow old playing bluegrass music,” she quipped.

A chance encounter with some bluegrass pickers on a stroll through the park brought her back to the bluegrass community. “I started playing again and writing songs again,” she said. Cindy released her first bluegrass record in 2012 called The Road. In 2015 she got to work with the Grammy winning Jim Van Cleve on her second CD, Jail Break. In 2016 she took third place in the Chris Austin songwriting competition at Merlefest. And she teams up again with Van Cleve for her most recent record, Moonshiner’s Daughter.

To find out more, visit
www.cindygbluegrass.com