Sixty-five lucky people had seats for the Webster City debut of American Roots musician and vocalist Jeni Grouws Sunday afternoon at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Webster City. Grouws powerfully connected with her audience with two hours of music, punctuated with natural friendliness and humorous storytelling.

Born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and growing up mainly in Fargo, Grouws is a self-described “Midwestern girl.” She co-founded Avey Grouws Band with Chris Avey in 2017; eventually producing two top ten Billboard albums: The Devil May Care (#10) and Tell Tale Heart (#7). A signature song, Beck and Call Girl, was co-written by Grouws and Avey and released in extended play in 2018.

The band won the Iowa Blues Challenge in 2017 and 2019, and represented Iowa twice at the International Blues Challenge, on Beale Street in Memphis, historic home of the blues. They toured the Midwest for almost 10 years, even appearing at Buddy Guy’s Legends blues club in Chicago in 2024. Avey-Grouws performed its final show last spring in Chatfield, MN.

Joining Grouws onstage were Dave Ducharme-Jones on guitar. Webster City native, Dave Lubbers sat in as special guest on harmonica. Iowa-born singer-songwriter Ducharme-Jones lives in Des Moines. He and his band will perform in the fifth annual PorchFest this fall. This event involves 20 bands playing on front porches in the Union Park neighborhood of Des Moines on Sunday September 13.

Lubbers formed Dogtown Rhythm Band with blues musician Tom Buckmiller in Des Moines in 2025. The duo specializes in postwar blues, music of the late 1940s through the ’50s. Lubbers is a Peabody-award winning sports writer, currently working at Drake as the Assistant Professor of Multimedia News Journalism.

The Jeni Grouws concert was the first to be produced by Highway 20 Media, a division of Highway 20 Group, owned by John Marvel of Webster City.

This was Grouws’s first performance in Webster City, but the audience’s enthusiasm for her music, and bigger-than-life personality suggests it’s not likely to be her last.

Debut Album

Grouws isn’t slowing down since the break-up of Avey Grouws. This fall will see two signature events in her career.

Grouws debut solo album, “Jeni Grouws Songs From The Music House”, will be released September 4 at Captain Roy’s, a bar and grill located in the Des Moines Union Park neighborhood. Grouws refers to the style of music in the album as “American Roots.” Many genres of music native to the U.S. can be classified as American Roots, including blues, bluegrass, Cajun, country, gospel, and jazz, among others.

Recorded in Nashville, in addition to Grouws, the album features. Minnesotan singer-songwriter Casey Wasner, Brian Allen, Mike Hicks, Johnny Duke and special guests. Its title derives from the time Grouws spent at The Music House, an artist-in-residence home in South Omaha, where she wrote songs for the album.

Grouws isn’t bringing out her album under a major record label. Instead, to get the music to market faster, she’s taking on the risks of production and marketing herself, an undertaking she says could cost as much as $40,000. She’s started a Kickstarter project to help with funding.

This fall, on September 10-13 Grouws will appear at Big Blues Bender at Westgate Resort in Las Vegas, usually considered the biggest blues music event in the country. She joins blues legends Bonnie Raitt, Booker T. Jones and Tab Benoit onstage for four days and nights of music at the 3000-room resort a block off the famed Las Vegas Strip.

Fans wishing to help her in this critical, career-building work, should visit www.kickstarter.com, and type Jeni Crouws: Music House in the search box.