Casey Lipka is a Sacramento/Los Angeles bassist, vocalist, composer and project-builder whose career keeps returning to one idea: music as a way to create connection. She is a solo artist, a member of the Sacramento folk trio Dear Darling, a founding member of Cave Women, a former touring bassist with CAKE, a teaching artist, and a community-program builder whose work spans house concerts, museums, ballet, grant-funded collaborations and acoustic folk-pop releases.
Career
Lipka's public bio traces her love of music back to childhood singing and musical-theater touchstones. Sacramento is part of the spine of the story: Sac State identifies her as a 2010 Jazz Studies alum, and CapRadio later described her as an instrumentalist, vocalist and composer splitting time between Sacramento and Los Angeles.
Her Sacramento band history runs deeper than the CAKE credit. Cave Women was a Sacramento all-women jazz/folk/pop project with released recordings in the early 2010s. The band's 2012 self-titled album credits the group as a vocal-forward, harmony-driven ensemble; external listings identify Lipka on bass, mbira and vocals. CapRadio's 2014 feature on Cave Women describes the project around four-part harmony, jazz and singer-songwriter influences, and improvisational elements.
Lipka's Sacramento ensemble life also includes work named in Capital Dance Project materials: leading her own band and accompanying Sonic Drift, One Button Suit, Camellia Symphony, Ron Cunha Big Band and Sacramento Women's Chorus. The same bio places her as a Sacramento-based vocalist, bassist and teaching artist who had recently toured with CAKE.
Dear Darling is the clearest current Sacramento group connection. The trio, formed in late 2019, brings together Natalie Hagwood on cello and voice, Casey Lipka on bass and voice, and Hannah Jane Kile on guitar and voice. The group's public bio says Lipka and Kile bonded through the Sacramento scene, then Lipka brought Hagwood in after hiring her for a gig. Dear Darling's sound sits between folk, jazz, classical, pop and Americana, with harmony at the center. NPR Live Sessions / Mountain Stage lists Dear Darling performances for "Let Me Go" and "Who Cares."
As a solo artist, Lipka's recorded work has become increasingly explicit about relationship, resilience and community. Her 2023 EP Show Up grew out of a project about making space for what showing up looks like: taking breaks, asking for help, speaking up, and advocating for others. Her 2026 EP Giving It Time narrows the arrangements around voice and acoustic warmth while keeping the same emotional territory: patience, honesty, friendship, gratitude and the slow work of sustaining connection.
Lipka's community work sits beside the records rather than behind them. Her official site lists an Innovation Grant for a collaborative music series highlighting women's lived experiences, an ACMP Play-In Grant for a gathering centered on women and nonbinary double bassists in Los Angeles, and a Professional Development Grant. Her 2026 collaboration page documents a music initiative pairing live performance with conversation, with featured artists including Christina Steele, Diamond Key and Hannah Jane Kile.
Discography
Solo releases
- Casey Lipka (2015): three-song Bandcamp release with "Blizzard," "With You" and "Under the Willow Tree." Bandcamp tags it jazz and Sacramento.
- "Marigold" (2022): single, released June 17, 2022 on Lee Records.
- "Home" (2022): single, listed by Apple Music.
- "It's Gonna Be Alright" (2023): single from the Show Up project.
- Show Up (2023): five-song EP released April 14, 2023 on Lee Records. Tracks: "I Got This," "It's Gonna Be Alright," "Better Get Going," "Our Time" and "Lazy." Official credits list Lipka on vocals, electric/acoustic bass and some piano, with L?o Costa, Nadav Peled, Daniel Mandelman, Rich Hinman and Kesha Shantrell among the credited players.
- "Never Want To Say" (2026): single released February 27, 2026.
- "The Long Road" (2026): single released March 27, 2026.
- "Goodbye" (2026): single, part of the Giving It Time rollout.
- Giving It Time (2026): five-song EP released May 29, 2026 on Lee Records. Tracks: "The Long Road," "Never Want To Say," "Higher," "Goodbye" and "Tides."
Cave Women
- Cave Women (2012): self-titled nine-song album released November 15, 2012. Bandcamp tracklist: "Blizzard," "Who Needs Dreams," "With You," "Counting Sheep," "Fall," "Balloons," "Hunger," "Something to Remember" and "Under the Willow Tree."
- Second Chances (2014): listed in Cave Women's Bandcamp discography; full metadata still needs a separate pass.
Dear Darling
- Believe (2022): Dear Darling album; the title track is listed as part of the album in Shazam/Apple-linked data.
- "Feel Good" feat. Tommy Emmanuel (2024): Dear Darling single listed in streaming indexes.
- Heart Harbor (2024): Dear Darling album. Public credits and social bios identify Lipka as bass and vocals, with Hannah Jane Kile on guitar/vocals and Natalie Hagwood on cello/vocals.
Why she matters to the Sacramento music graph
Lipka is a connector node more than a one-lane artist. She links Sacramento jazz education, the early-2010s Cave Women scene, the nationally visible CAKE orbit, Dear Darling's harmony-forward folk/Americana world, teaching infrastructure, dance and museum composition, and a newer solo catalog built around community and emotional resilience. Her current public voice is consistent with that history: she uses release posts to encourage listeners, thank the people around the work, and point attention toward collaborators.
Research status
This archive entry is sourced and live. Main career and discography are now materially mapped, while the long tail of sideperson credits, exact CAKE tour dates, Cave Women's Second Chances metadata, and final image rights remain good future expansion targets.