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Deep and Detailed Bio

Now At 60 + years, Kim is a seasoned performer with an extensive repertoire of original songs, traditional ballads and other gems. While she loves singing harmony, she happily takes the lead at a solo concert, accompanying herself on guitar, banjo and piano. She tells stories about the songs and sometimes really bad jokes and has mostly stopped threatening to send you to the office if you talk during the concert.

The 1960's As a kid, Kim attended NAACP meetings with her mom, and gorged on PP& M, Harry Belafonte and Buffy St Marie records until falling under the spell of the Beatles. Neighbors introduced her to the Kingston Trio, Ian and Sylvia and then to WNEW FM radio where she was immersed in the folk revival recordings of Steel Eye Span, Fairport Convention, Don MacLean, the McGarrigle Sisters and many more. She read the album covers and followed the songwriter credits to Tom Paxton, Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot.

The 1970's In college, Kim studied poetry with Richard Wilbur, Robert Pinsky and Jean Valentine and Scottish songs and ballads with Jean Redpath. She met Kate Seeger through Jean during her junior year at Wesleyan. She met Fay Baird during a winter session class on using antique printing presses. After college she traveled Europe for a year, then returned to the Boston area to clerk in music stores, teach music to young children and guitar to older ones, and perform in the T, the Nameless, Harvard Sq street corners and chowder restaurants. At Passim she opened for Bill Staines, Utah Phillips and other folk heroes. She also studied at the Monday open mic at The Back Room at the Idler, and sang with Norumbega Harmony, one of the founding groups of the Shape Note Revival. She was reunited with Fay and with Kate, and in 1979, they did their first Short Sister's gig for the Audobon reserve.

The 1980's In the early 80's Kim put out the self titled EP, and two full length LPs, The Coldest Winter in Living Memory and Paddle On The Rahway, and collaborated with the Short Sisters on the Short Tape (defunct) and A Little Gracefulness. She went to folk camps at Pinewoods and Ashokan, to contra dances and old timey sessions, and played every coffeehouse within driving distance of Somerville, from upstate NY to Maine to NJ to Philadelphia. In 1985 Kim did an exploratory tour to California, stopping to see the sights in New Orleans, visiting friends and getting lost in Texas, and meeting lots of strangers who became friends in California. This became a regular tour for the next 6 years. So did an annual trek to Kerrville, the first year as a NewFolk semi finalist, and the rest as an anchor on the children's stage. She camped out with California songwriting friends Kristina Olsen and Joyce Woodson, NY buddy David Roth, and got to know songwriters Jon Ims, Chuck Pyle, David Wilcox, Steve Gillette and many more around the campfires at night and on the stage. In the summer she was a part time music counselor at Camp Killooleet in Hancock, VT, where Kate eventually assumed the directorship from her parents. Fay moved to Florida and found work as a hydrologist!

The 1990's In 1990 Kim endured a life crisis, questioning herself and everything else, the value of music, the loneliness and physical hardship of touring, and the incompatibility for her of a stable relationship or moving forward with a personal life at the same time as a professional performing career. There were panic attacks on stage and on bridges, illness, really bad weather, and driving related health issues. So, in 1991 Kim moved to NH, became a public school music teacher, got married, and had a daughter. Performing became increasingly part time, and incompatible with maintaining family relationships and teaching responsibilities. Some people can do it. Kim couldn't. There was more joy in singing with the Short Sisters, exploring songwriting with the Rolling Crones, and performing locally with the Solstice Sisters (Alouette Iselin, Heather Bower, Melanie Everard) than in solo performing.

The 2000's Kim loves being part of an ensemble: Bob Franke's Good Friday Cantata, and serving as musician for Firebird Morris Team. She taught music in small rural elementary public schools in NH and MA for almost 30 years, and loved singing, dancing and writing songs with her students.

Back to Now Kim retired from teaching in 2018, a little ahead of schedule. She currently lives in Keene, NH and cares for her mom and a "malted" named Teeky. The current pandemic, while devastating in so many ways to the lives of teachers and musicians, offers some opportunities that Kim hopes will endure beyond their necessity - pub sings that span 5 time zones, concerts from one living room to another.
While waiting for a vaccine, Kim is enjoying weekly online children's song swaps, ballad sings, writing new songs, creating a home performance space. She spends the rest of her time lying awake worrying about the state of the nation, stalking toilet paper, watching endless game shows and playing scrabble with her mom, and supporting local restaurants by ordering take out. She longs for hugs, and crowded rooms dense with harmony singing.