Who The Heck Is Ken Pomeroy?: Meet the Folk Singer Bringing Heart and Heritage to a New Generation
By Alli Patton
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In 1969, a silvery trickle of strings and the tentative pitter-patter of cymbals—descending like soft rain after a downpour—washed against John Denver’s hushabye voice as he sang his listeners a mournful farewell. “So kiss me and smile for me, tell me that you'll wait for me,” the folk legend regretfully lilted in his enduring opus, Leaving on a Jet Plane, begging, “Hold me like you'll never let me go…”
Some four decades later, those same anguished words—set against deceptively bright chords—washed over a six-year-old Ken Pomeroy, who, in that moment, was born again.
“I just remember it awakening something in me,” recalls the now-22-year-old folk singer-songwriter, thinking back on the moment she discovered the Denver tune all those years ago. “That was the first time that music had made me feel something. I remember being a kid, feeling what he was trying to portray—and I wanted to do that ever since then.” And that she has.
Her first song came just a few years later, around the age of eight or nine, while she was learning to play the ukulele. It was called When I Was Young. The tune was about just that: being young—younger than she was then—likely already hinting at the wisdom she had gathered in her short time.
“When I was 16, I thought I was a grown person—and apparently, when I was nine too, I thought I had a story to tell.”
Pomeroy was born and raised in Moore, Oklahoma—a small, in-between town nestled halfway between Norman and Oklahoma City, and a frequent hub of tornado destruction. Because of this, she grew up within a strong community, one that has had to quite literally weather storms and help each other pick up the pieces of their lives more than once. That resilience translates into her music today—the urge to help, to console.
With a honed pen and an open heart, the artist has always written what she knows, crafting songs from moments both big and small, from memories light with untamable joy and heavy with unmistakable pain. Across her new album, Cruel Joke, listeners encounter the full spectrum of Pomeroy—the dozen-track collection finds her at her most vulnerable and compassionate, with one goal at its heart: to make you feel less alone.
Growing up, Pomeroy found it difficult to relate to the “sad songs” being released, so she set out to create music that didn’t necessarily commiserate but instead acted as a companion. Whether through the trauma of Stranger and Innocent Eyes or the aching unease of self-reflection in Cicadas and Coyote, she’s there with you—her assured soprano and discerning words acting as steady guides through life.
Throughout Cruel Joke, Pomeroy draws from her Cherokee heritage and Red Dirt roots, carrying with her the folk teachings of her Mamaw—who often told the young artist, “Until you walk a mile in another man's moccasins, you can't imagine the smell”—the strength of her community, a deep connection to nature, and, in turn, a sharpened understanding of the world around her.
“There’s plenty of themes throughout the album that kind of lend themselves to either my heritage or a rough start growing up,” she says of the sprawling and emotionally weighty collection.
“I hope people can find some solace in not being alone after hearing it.”
Since the days of When I Was Young, her songwriting has undoubtedly evolved, but her mission hasn’t. “The goal has stayed the same,” she explains. “It’s just getting things out that are genuine—not trying to be anything or do anything specifically—just being genuine to what I want to get across.”
Pomeroy never set out to leave such a mark, nor even planned on pursuing a musical career in the first place. It was a gut instinct she has trusted intrinsically ever since. “I could be totally content just kind of playing my own songs to myself,” she explains, “but I think, even from hearing John Denver for the first time, I really wanted to share what I was doing.”
She simply has something important to sing, and we’re all the better for it. At the end of the day, she sums up this musical journey as a path that chose her—like something above has been guiding her forward. What that is, even she doesn’t know. Maybe it’s something akin to God. Maybe it’s John Denver.
Either way, her songs will be here to hold us like they’ll never let us go.
Ken Pomeroy's 2025 album, Cruel Joke, is out now via Rounder Records.
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