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Chester County Press

Songs in the Americana bag: Kim Richey to play The Kennett Flash on Oct. 13

10/02/2024 01:58PM ● By Caroline Roosevelt
Kim Richey's newest album, Every New Beginning [1 Image] Click Any Image To Expand

By Caroline Roosevelt
Contributing Writer

Although you’d be mistaken to describe Kim Richey’s music as pure country, it’s a sound that could easily also float into the categories of alt folk or contemporary. I recently chatted with Richey ahead of her Oct. 13 performance at The Kennett Flash, as she prepares for a U.S. and Europe tour to promote her new album, Every New Beginning


CR: Tell me a little bit about your journey to becoming a musician.

KR: My dad died when I was two. I was told he sang in a barbershop quartet and played stand-up bass, but as a family, we didn’t do anything musically. I always liked singing and sang in church choir and I performed music in college for a bit, but once I graduated from college, I was cooking at and running a restaurant in Bellingham, Washington. When I moved to Nashville in 1988, I began waiting tables at bartending at McCabe’s. I then got a position with the music publisher Blue Water Music as a staff writer, while at the same time they were trying to get me a record deal. 

You just put out a new album this year. Talk about Every New Beginning.

The album is part new songs and part old songs. I have a large back catalog of songs because sometimes songs wouldn’t fit with the group of songs that I had ready to go, you know, in an album or I just kind of forgot about them or I was more interested in the things that I’ve just written. They fit together and I always have the publisher, the producer, help pick the songs. I would have final say, but I like the producer to help decide what songs are going on the album just because they have a more objective view than I have.

Between studio and live performance, what’s your preference? 

They’re both creative, but I always enjoy the thrill of the live performance and that “whatever happens in the moment” vibe. When we go out as a trio or duo, we can’t reproduce the songs exactly as they are on the album, so we’ve tried to make them into our own live thing with the three of us, which is working out pretty well. I love collaborating with people. I hire people or ask people to work with me on a record and then I let them do their thing.

I have read descriptions of your work defined as country, but when I listen to it, it doesn’t feel strictly like that genre to me.

Oh, I know. I’ve been getting that all along. They don’t know what to make of me. I think I fit well in the Americana bag.

I have heard you described as similar to Shawn Colvin.

I remember the first time I ever heard Sean Colvin. Bill Lloyd played “Steady On” for me, and it was like, ‘This is the music. This is my music. This is what I've been looking for forever.’

You just triggered a core memory for me, of being in the backseat of my mom’s minivan listening to that song. It just allowed me to daydream. Who has been your inspiration?

One of my main influences would definitely be Joni Mitchell. There’s also Steve Earle, because his songs were the first time I’d ever heard that style of writing – more of a country and folk fusion and lyrically amazing.  I also enjoy the music of the seventies, so much of what is considered Americana now: the Byrds, Linda Ronstadt, the Grateful Dead and Jackson Browne.

It must be strange now that everyone has their own bespoke way of listening to music with Spotify. So, you stick to your genres and your people that you listen to. It becomes a lot harder to find someone by mistake, even though we have so much more access to music.

I agree completely. Everybody’s got their headphones in their ear buds and listening to their own Spotify. It’s the same with TV and movies; our shared experiences are kind of going away, and especially during pandemic, when everybody just got used to staying home and cocooning up and watching movies. Remember when things used to happen on TV, when it wasn’t streamed, and you couldn’t just see it later on the internet? We don’t have that anymore and I think that that’s contributing to why everybody’s kind of throbbing up.

What can we expect from you at your upcoming performance in Kennett Square?

I'll be playing with the trio, and we have Aaron Lee Tasjan coming along with us this time. He’s a wonderful guitarist who will be filling in for our regular guitarist. We’ll be playing songs from the new record, and we’ll also play songs from older records, too, because when I see live music, I love hearing the new songs, but I also want to hear some of the songs I’m familiar with.

Tickets for Kim Richey’s performance are $30 in advance and $35 at the door and can be purchased by visit www.kennettflash.org.