Shelley King

McGonigel’s Mucky Duck presents Shelley King at 9:30 p.m. Saturday, November 21, 2015.

Some people enter a room and blend right in. Not Shelley King. She sweeps in, carrying herself with the strength and assurance of a woman who knows how to step up and get it done, whether “it” is leading her band, running her own record label or co-producing her latest album, Building A Fire.

Since quitting a sales job to pursue music full time in 1998, the singer-songwriter has served as the first female Texas state musician, performed with Levon Helm, toured the United States, Europe and Japan and cut two albums with members of the Subdudes — including this one, her seventh.

We’re talking, after all, about a woman who loves the Subdudes’ music so much, she started pursuing opening slots on their tours so she could catch their shows. It makes perfect sense that King would be attracted to that New Orleans-born band; her own soul-filled, earthy Americana sound is rooted in southern gospel and blues.

In Arkansas, King began singing as a toddler. Her parents split, her mom remarried and King moved to Houston, then Amarillo, where she landed front and center in the children’s choir at her grandmother’s church. After another stint in Houston, her mother divorced again, and King wound up with her other grandmother in Arkansas. She found salvation — literally — in a one-room country church, where she built a social life, gained solace from familial turmoil and soloed weekly. Sometimes her uncles accompanied her on guitar. That’s when she also started writing songs, inspired by her beloved Caddo River and a teenager’s hopes and dreams.

King returned to Texas for college, which she financed by running her first business. Her plans included law school. But after working for a lawyer and starting her own band, she realized law was not her passion. Music was. After gigging around Houston for a couple of years, she moved to Austin in 1992. By day, she worked as a sales rep; the rest of the time, she lived and breathed music. One day she realized she didn’t care about sales and would forever regret it if she didn’t at least try to follow her heart.

King’s first full-length album, Call of My Heart, contained two songs subsequently covered by Austin songstress Toni Price. Her version of the title tune won Song of the Year at the 2002 Austin Music Awards. A few years later, King and her band were named Band of the Year for roots rock. She’s since racked up more accolades, including that Official Texas State Musician title (she was No. 6, preceding even Willie Nelson) and an appearance with Carolyn Wonderland in an episode of the world-renowned “Austin City Limits” TV show.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/shelleykingtx