Karl Robert Neice is a songwriter and performer, a child of the growing midcentury West, born and raised in California, living and loving among Western cities, valley towns, mountains, rivers, and shores. And among its people on the move.
He moved to Seattle in the 70s, earned a communications degree at the University of Washington and worked at most all of its daily and weekly newspapers, and also was a founding staff member of the legendary Rocket music and arts magazine. He was recruited to lead coverage for the Good Times music and arts weekly in Santa Cruz, Calif., until the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake limited his future there. Karl returned to Washington state to work for its leading daily newspaper, The Seattle Times, for 25 years as a desk editor, winning two staff Pulitzers.
Karl has been writing songs for over 50 years, inspired by Crosby, Stills and Nash, Texas singer-songwriters Townes Van Zandt and
Nanci Griffith, poets Walt Whitman and Gary Snyder, and novelists Ken Kesey and Louise Erdrich. Karl writes and sings the songs of Western souls, the interior music of its vast landscapes. Karl’s music harkens soulful and dusty folk-rock, country and blues sounds – mostly known as Americana these days. He has performed at Seattle’s Folklife Festival, Tumbleweed Music Festival’s Open-Mic stage, Seattle’s Egan’s Jam House, Conor Byrne Co-op, Fremont Abbey, Phinney Farmers Market, put on shows at Couth Buzzard and C&P coffee shops and performed at numerous open mics around the state.