Amanda Kowalski
Musician · West Virginia
Best known for
Bass
Amanda Kowalski is a West Virginia–raised upright bassist best known as a founding member of the bluegrass band Della Mae and, before that, as the old-time band Uncle Earl’s bassist. Since leaving the road in 2012 she has worked primarily as a photographer and documentary filmmaker.
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- Grew up in West Virginia playing Appalachian roots music, then spent nearly four years in the early 2000s as upright bassist of the old-time string band Uncle Earl; she also toured with the Freight Hoppers and with Abigail Washburn and Béla Fleck.
- Co-founded Della Mae in Boston in 2009 with fiddler Kimber Ludiker, anchoring a founding lineup that also included Grace Van’t Hof and Avril Smith.
- Played bass on Della Mae’s first two releases, the 2010 Acoustic EP and the self-released 2011 debut album I Built This Heart.
- Left Della Mae in March 2012, announced at a sold-out show at Club Passim, the band’s Boston home venue, choosing her freelance photography and videography career over the band’s touring schedule; Shelby Means took over the bass chair.
- Her photography and film work has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, NPR.org, and National Geographic Online; she collaborated on the Emmy-winning 2021 short film Nightsongs and plays bass in the southern Maine–based Old Hat Stringband.
