Meet Cari Minor | Singer/Songwriter/Performer @Strangebyrds (With Raymond Leroy Smith)

We had the good fortune of connecting with Cari Minor and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Cari, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
We (Strangebyrds Music Duo) met in 1999 at the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival Song School. We immediately connected with our music and soon after started booking shows. We have created six albums together of original music, music we called “Blue Collar Folk-Americana” that we now call “Folk-Rock Americana”. We run Byrd Nest Recording Studio out of our home base in Rollinsville, CO. and have recorded several local and touring musicians. Ray has written several pieces for film (Muscle Shoals Documentary Film, Numerous pieces for Sender Films including The Alpinist (Universal Pictures, 2022) and the upcoming Patagonia Film (Sender Films “Reel Rocks” release date: February 16th, 2024). Together Ray Smith and Cari Minor wrote “The World Needs Mercy” for the short documentary film- “Common Thread” (Frank Fazzio) a film about the effects of Global Warming on children around the world. Thus far the song has garnered Strangebryds top awards at Film Festivals around the globe (California, London, Paris, England and Italy). Our thought process has always been to write and sing our truth and to always keep our passion for performing our focus. We have morphed over the years and through the pandemic and just released a Rock-N-Roll album, “Shrieking Violets” that was 200% funded by our fans and debuted to a sold out audience at E-Town Hall (October, 2023). This album was inspired by Ray’s diagnosis last year with stage 3 cancer. As a way to give back to our Cancer Care Team we gave a portion of our ticket sales to Cancer Care Patients at UCHealth LongsPeak Hospital in Longmont, CO. For the first time our music feels “bigger then us” in that we are going to seek out more ways to “give back” to our community with future music and film projects.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I think what sets us apart from others at this point in our music career is our depth of songwriting and our passion for performance (see previous question for more details). We’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way and they in turn have broadened our life experience and have enriched our songwriting even more. What do we want the world to know about our story? Perhaps that even after twenty five years of performing we still feel we have important things to say, to share through our music and our performances. We are constantly inspired to be creative. We are most proud of the fact that our career has blossomed through the years, even through Ray’s battle with cancer last year. We are also very proud to have been recognized and have garnered awards for each of the six albums we have co-written together and the music we have written for film that has been recognized in International Film Festivals from around the globe.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Of course it would be in winter, of course our best friend is a skier. First we would take them snow shoeing on our property at 9,000 feet to show them the Continental Divide. Then we would take them to our ski local area, Eldora. We would treat them to Apres Ski and a beer at The Very Nice Brewing in Nederland, CO. or at Howling Wind Brewery in Rollinsville, CO.. We’d roll down Boulder Canyon to take them to Sushi Zanmai and walk the Pearl Street Mall afterwards to The Trident Cafe for a cuppa. Of course our favorite music act would be at the Boulder Theater so we would catch a show and since you mentioned this would be the “best time ever” we would stay at the Hotel Boulderado or The St. Julien Hotel & Spa.
For the rest of the week:
E Town Hall
Chautauqua Dining Hall (with a hike on the Enchanted Mesa before).
Denver Art Museum

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Planet Bluegrass UCHealth Longspeak Hospital
Kort McCumber

Website: https://www.strangebyrds.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strangebyrds/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@strangebyrds1507/videos

Image Credits
Richard Cummings