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It was in a garage at a party when Horn overheard and old friend singing a cappella; the two had performed together years earlier, in music school, while both were learning to perfect the classical music they were, years later, eagerly leaving behind. Unlike Horn, Bost was a vocalist by training, and was working as a sound engineer. That night sparked a relationship between the two ladies that catalyzed a series of shows and finally Hudson K’s first album.

Mutual friend and Teleskope drummer Nate Barrett, already a well-established local musician with regular spots with Artvandalay, Sarah Schwabe and her Yankee Jazz Band, and other Knoxville regulars, soon added percussion and more harmony to the act. Their first album, Safety Line, was independently released in early 2007, launching a series of performances over the following summer in Knoxville and surrounding southern cities. The first live and print reviews were kind to the group’s effort. But by the fall of 2007, the band had evolved into something distinctly more professional than the talented but newborn trio who had recorded that first album. Horn, Bost, and Barrett were all developing individually, but they were doing so in a way that only brought the band to a smarter and more expressive cohesion.

Bands evolve. Fate played a favorable hand and put the trio on stage at the Laurel Theater to perform music for Primitive Light, a yearly production put on by Knoxville’s Circle Modern Dane. Thanks to the collaborative spirit of the Circle dancers and their fellow musicians, a new relationship was born. Hudson K was introduced to Jen Rock and Rachel Schlafer-Parton. Rock, a bona-fide Kentucky girl, got her start as a member of the psychedelic folk outfit Deek Hoi. The match was obvious and Jen took to the task, jumping on board for Hudson K’s regional tours. Parton, who admits she is kin to Dolly, inspired the group with virtuosic flute solos at the Laurel Theatre and was immediately asked to join the band.

What began as a trio with acoustic guitar and piano-centered sound has morphed into a quartet with the power of an electric orchestra behind it. If their sounds of late on the local scene are any indication of what’s to come, Knoxville had better stay tuned: Hudson K may just be pioneering of the emergence of a sound and a scene that this southern city will soon be proud to claim as it’s own original creation.