Kitty, Daisy And Lewis: English Siblings With Vintage Taste

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis is a three-piece band, comprising a trio of musical siblings from North London. They're wrapping up a European tour now, back at home in England after getting rave reviews on the road in Spain and France. Their sound has been heralded by the likes of Coldplay, whom they toured with in 2009.

Weekend Edition Sunday host Audie Cornish spoke with Kitty, Daisy and Lewis Durham from the BBC studios in London, and began by asking how the family band got its start.

"We've always played music at home together, but we kind of started off in this pub," says Kitty Durham. "We used to go there to listen to the music with our parents — kids were allowed. It was a Sunday afternoon thing with country and folk bands and stuff. We sort of got to know the guy who ran the night there, and he asked us to come up one day and do one song, just for fun."

That song was "Folsom Prison Blues," the Johnny Cash tune in which a jailed murderer sits in his prison cell, musing on the outside world. Kitty Durham says the song's music, which has shades of the rockabilly sound the siblings would eventually adopt, so moved them that they didn't think twice about its dark content.

"When you don't really care what the lyrics are saying, you don't necessarily have to understand them," she says. "Because we just loved and enjoyed the music and enjoyed playing it, it didn't matter."

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