In just two years, Austin’s The Blue Hit has evolved to something special, something else, something extraordinary; so far, in fact, that the question of genre is answered variously as progressive folk, eclectic pop, and even easy listening. It is only a cello, a spine-tingling female voice and a guitar, delicately interlacing amid intelligent poetry. With music that is well- orchestrated, expertly executed and renders audiences speechless, they play festivals, listening rooms, bar/venues and house concerts across the country and are known to unplug when the setting is just right.

Before summer 2007, member John McGee avidly had played various instruments in many bands around Austin and San Marcos. He and Grace Rowland, who was studying music at Texas State University, had become close friends. With only a few songs before she experienced what can only be called an epiphany, she began writing music and performing publicly with friends, making a home at the Tantra Coffeehouse and Alice’s Restaurant. She and McGee were asked to play a graduation party, and they gathered some material together — it was then they discovered how fluidly they suited one another.

At their first Kerrville Folk Festival, they met a close friend’s brother, David Moss, who had gone to the University of Illinois for cello and was making a name for himself in Chicago, playing gypsy swing, jazz and blues. Realization that Moss was their third moved him to Austin, to a tiny house the trio shared with friends. That summer, in a sweltering garage, they gathered music, practiced what little they had and auditioned DJs and drummers among other musicians. But they found that no permanent fourth member was in the stars. The simple structure was fearlessly serene, and it enabled them to travel unplugged and unobtrusively.

When there was enough music for a gig, they booked their first at the Carousel Lounge down the street from their house. At the next Kerrville Folk Festival, a rainy, late-night, completely acoustic concert for more than 200 from the campground stage left the audience still, enthralled, silent — except for uproarious applause between magical, feisty, elegant, smart, singular songs. The trio’s show the next night — in the middle of the night on a blue moon, un-amplified on the main stage, only its fourth concert total — was recorded and became its first EP, printed and sold among the staff records, the entire printing of 250 copies gone quickly.

By the time of their second tour, they had recorded Rowland’s gems in a handful of studios around Texas, including MediaTech (formerly Arlyn Studios) and Sunover Studios. The best of these efforts became SUMMER 2008 EP, a collection of professionally recorded live tracks. Touring with the EP started a vast and diverse fan base growing across the United States. Finally in December 2008, the trio teamed up with Dan Workman and John Griffin of SugarHill Studios in Houston to create its dynamic debut full-length album, MOVE IN, released with a West Coast tour in May 2009 alongside John Elliott and the Hereafter.

Although The Blue Hit was named for Rowland’s late cat, Ponie, who has his own song, he is just one of many recurring themes and moods among the tracks on MOVE IN. Modern love, modern life and times, in lyrics that speak to people of all ages: an unprecedented sound that fits the American music scene right now.