Homecoming for Hill

PALMER — For Emma Hill, performing at Vagabond Blues will be something akin to a homecoming.

“I grew up in Sleetmute; it’s on the Kuskokwim, but then I went to high school in Palmer,” Hill said Dec. 29 by phone from Portland, Ore. “I’m just really, really excited about coming home. I was there in August, so it wasn’t that long ago, but it just feels like I’ve been away for a lot longer. “

At 22, Hill has been a musician for pretty much her entire adult life. The biography on her Web page, emmahillmusic.com, says she got her start while still in high school performing in Alaska. She was part of Blackbird Productions and half of the folk duo Pennies and Patches. By 2006, she was in Portland recording solo material. And now she’s putting out her third CD, “Meet Me at the Moon,” copies of which will be available at the show, even though it’s not coming out officially for a couple more months.

She said giving Alaska a sneak peek at the new record is very exciting. It’s not something she got to do with the last two.

“I released them, but I didn’t get to show them to Alaska until months afterward,” she said.

She’ll be coming to Alaska with one member of her backing band, the Gentleman Callers. Hill just finished up a European tour through Italy, Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands. She landed in the U.S. on a flight from Amsterdam Christmas Day. She toured with U.K. musician Jack Stafford and played house concerts — putting on shows in living rooms.

“It was like part vacation, part work,” Hill said.

She said she loved the experience. It was her first trip to Europe, so she put in a lot of sightseeing time, all while maintaining a photo blog of pictures of Steggy, a toy dinosaur, posed in front of famous landmarks (the blog is called Steggy’s Big Adventure and is at Tumblr.com).

“Really, I felt like I was just loving every place that I went to more. A little gem that stood out for me city-wise was Utrecht in the Netherlands,” Hill said.

She described it as a smaller, younger, slightly hipper version of Amsterdam.

“It’s just really charming,” Hill said.

The Alaska tour includes stops earlier this week in Anchorage and in Girdwood at Maxine’s Glacier City Bistro today; Homer at the Bunnell Street Arts Center on Saturday; and finally at Vagabond Blues on Sunday.

Then it’s back to Portland with shows in that area and some surrounding the official CD release. And then Hill will travel to the annual South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, playing shows along the way. It will be her first time at the festival — possibly the biggest indie music event of the year — and she’s excited that the first time she attends she’ll also be performing.

So where does Hill live these days, exactly?

“Nowhere,” she said. “I’m on the road too much. I gave up my spot here in Oregon in August and I’m just traveling so much I just kind of crash with friends when I’m back in Portland or up in Alaska.”

She said through touring she’s been all over the country. If she had to pick a region she liked best she’d choose the Pacific Northwest.

“I always am really happy to come back to the Northwest. I love Oregon, Washington and Alaska and certain parts of California,” Hill said. “I think it just clicks best with me.”

And the part of the country she likes least? Hill doesn’t even pause to think.

“Southern California,” she said. “Although I continue to go back.”

She said she has the same kind of relationship with Las Vegas. She doesn’t like most of what people generally go to Vegas to do and see. But Vegas has things like the Neon Reverb Music Festival. The festival is a twice-yearly event and she played there both times this year. She has also connected with a group of people in Vegas she is very happy to visit again and again.

“There’s a killer indie music scene of kids that like grew up in Vegas,” Hill said. “I think there are good people wherever you go.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.