You’re at The Harmony Bar & Grill in Madison waiting for tonight’s headliner, Annie & the Oakies, to break through the churn of laughter and conversation. A dancing pluck of banjo soon fills the air, carried by a stand-up bass, accompanied by a mandolin and fiddle. Then a voice weaves through it all, grounded and confident with nods to Patsy Cline and Lorde. It almost takes you by the hand, and there’s no doubt in your mind that Annie Emmenegger was born to perform.
Well, that would be news to Annie. She says, “I was always passionate about music, but I never had a passion to be a performer.” Growing up in Middleton, Annie enjoyed CCR and Bob Dylan and took part in church choir, but nothing outside of that. Her voice was nurtured at home, where her mom would often sing around the house. When she turned 16, her dad gave her his Sigma guitar. All of that made music part of her life, but performing? Meh.
After graduating high school, in 2002, Annie briefly attended UW–Milwaukee. One year in, she realized that big-city life wasn’t her jam, and transferred to Stevens Point. Here, she would drift into the bluegrass scene by current, not sail, and make some lifelong friends.
“I ended up dating a guy who played guitar in a local band with his buddies,” says Annie. “They taught me how to flatpick. Got really into Doc Watson and Tony Rice and some Norman Blake. … Art Stevenson & High Water, they would play at Northland Ballroom every Wednesday night. They’d been doing that for years. We would go out there and have beers and dance.”
College was also where Annie often did open mics. The way she tells it, this was more something she did with her friends for fun, not as a career jump-off point. But it was during performances that she found encouragement from friends and strangers alike to put her voice out there as much as she possibly could.
So what next? Playing in a band, touring the West, then coming back home? No. Again, performing wasn’t driving her. But much like John Muir, she heard the call of the mountains, and headed out to the Methow Valley, on the east side of the North Cascades in Washington, and the Applegate Valley, in Oregon. “I lived out there most of my adult life,” says Annie. “When I moved out West, I got an internship with a goat dairy out in the Applegate Valley and learned how to make cheese. Interestingly enough, my great grandparents made cheese in Wisconsin. I ended up living in the country—three-and-a-half hours to Seattle and three-and-a-half hours to Spokane. I feel like a country girl at heart, and I hope to move back to the country someday. That’s the long-term plan—to end up in the mountains some day.”
Music remained a force in her life out West. Aside from the wide range of local groups, the dairy she worked at had a stage, which she would perform on. She also spent some time working at Old Schoolhouse Brewery, granting her access to a variety of music as well as another stage. From 2014 to 2018, Annie joined an alternative country band called Danville. “That’s where I blossomed as a performer,” says Annie. “From doing open mics to performing in a band.” Whether at a wedding in the mountains or a local venue, she was learning about connection to community through music.
She moved back to Madison in 2018, and something odd struck her. For the first time in her life, she missed performing. As fate would have it, “I happened to be out at the Malt House one night having a few drinks and ended up striking up a conversation with a guy at the bar sitting next to me. He was the bass player for this band, The Oak Street Ramblers, and he’s like, ‘One of our members is taking a hiatus. Do you want to come to our practice in my basement next week?’ So I ended up going to practice, and I’m still playing with those guys eight years later. We changed our name to Annie and the Oakies. Playing with them has been amazing.”
Today, in addition to the Oakies, Annie is also playing solo gigs; performing as part of Flying by the Seat, a trio focused on country and blues; and she just started playing with the Grouvin Family Band. That would seem like more than enough for anyone’s plate, but three years ago, she became a mother, something she plainly states wasn’t part of the plan. But she couldn’t stop performing. With a two-year-old and a three-year-old running around, she simply keeps going.
She admits there’s less time to practice now, but she’s started to explore songwriting. Annie has a wealth of stories these days, and she’s feeling an increasing pull to get them down. “I really want to create an album,” she says. “Leave these stories behind when I’m gone.”
One such story involves the 1941 Martin 0018 she found at Norm’s Rare Guitars in Los Angeles. She flipped a coin that pinged off the body of the instrument. The side that landed up told her not to drain her savings into the guitar, but she bought it anyway. Then there was a three-week rafting trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Each night, she and a few other musicians would play together in side canyons of ancient rock walls, the river moving below, voices carrying. “It’s one of the greatest experiences I’ve had in my life,” she says.
Annie and her husband recently purchased a small property where they’re building an urban farm, complete with goats, an orchard, and plans to start making cheese. Eventually, there will even be a stage. She says, “My long-term goal is to have music events and perform and tie in the farming community with the music community. Have it be a gathering place for all kinds of people.”
Whether to the land, community, friends, or family, Annie has built a life shaped by connection. These connections aren’t built by chasing moments, but by being fully present when they arrive.
