Kight is billed as "The Georgia Songbird".[1] Her main musical influence was Koko Taylor.[2]
Life and career
Eugenia Gail Kight was born in Dublin, Georgia. At the age of five her grandmother taught her to play the guitar.[2] In her youth she watched Elvis Presley perform in Macon, Georgia.[4] Initially raised on a musical diet of gospel and country music, she gravitated towards the blues after hearing a recording of Koko Taylor. Already a professional musician in her mid-teens, Kight moved away from playing country songs and began her career in Chicago blues. She appeared regularly on the television program Nashville Now in 1989 and toured extensively in the late 1990s and into the new millennium.[1][4]
On Kight's 2008 album, It's Hot in Here, released by M.C. Records, she wrote or co-wrote most of the tracks.[2] It attained number one on the root blues chart and on Sirius XM Radio.[3]
Prior to Kight's album release, Lip Service (2011), she had two stays in hospital due to a combination of meningitis and encephalitis.[6][7] The album again had musical and production input from Paul Hornsby and contained "Koko's Song", a tribute to Taylor.[8][9] The album also had her duet with John Németh.[7]