About - Biography

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Opening for Loudon Wainwright III in Nov 2009
• Winner of the 61st Annual Ozark Folk Festival Songwriting Contest, Nov 2008
• Mountain Stage New Song Contest – Southeast regional finalist, Fall 2007
• Opened for Gretchen Peters and Sara Hickman at Memphis House Concerts
• Performed in December 2008 with Hall of Fame songwriter Matraca Berg and hit songwriters Deanna Bryant and Marcia Ramirez in Nashville

Though often portrayed in pop culture as being wielded by posturing men, guitars played professionally by women is an honored tradition that goes back at least as far as two legendary pickers, Mother Maybelle Carter in country music and Memphis Minnie in the blues. The 60s folk boom was a welcome corrective, as women artists such as Joan Baez, Buffy Ste. Marie, Joni Mitchell, Janis Ian and others utilized the acoustic guitar as a powerful and nuanced instrument to express their inner feelings.

Contemporary songster Kim Richardson is rightfully staking her claim to a place in line. Born on May 22, 1975 in Little Rock Arkansas, she got her first guitar at six in order to practice Bruce Springsteen rock star moves. The country music of Conway Twitty, Ronnie Milsap and Reba McEntire was also around and she played open mic nights in college. Ever the iconoclast, the only group she ever joined was the Memphis Troubadours (Three Chords and the Truth, 2001) though she sits in and guests regularly with friends. In the same year Richardson released her debut album, Up Until Now.

A performing songwriter, who thrives on involving the audience, Richardson encourages her fans to "experience" her shows rather than just watch and listen. Her songs live with a lot of humor and attitude, accompanied by a percussive acoustic guitar. Based in Memphis, she tours throughout the SE and recently stretched her boundaries to Chicago, playing Uncommon Ground, to Baltimore and Minneapolis performing house concerts. She has also played the Bluebird in Nashville, The Grey Eagle in Asheville, the Arkansas Heritage and Blues Festival in Helena, and Memphis In May in (you guessed it) Memphis. Richardson was nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year by the Memphis chapter of the Recording Academy and recently was a regional finalist in the Mountain Stage New Song contest performing at Eddie’s Attic in Atlanta.

Richardson has produced an album of timeless, searching, original artistic statements with her second release, True North. With the sensitive support of songwriting partner William Lee Ellis (acoustic and electric guitars), Amy LaVere (upright bass), Rick Steff (piano and organ) and Paul Taylor (percussion and electric bass), Richardson invests each song with her emotional involvement that rings true and authentic. “Vinegar in Your Veins” uses a startling metaphor that says she means business when addressing a paramour in her naturally country twang with a keyboard arrangement reminiscent of Carole King circa Tapestry. “Cause You’re Mine” is a more wistful take on the subject as Richardson harmonizes sweetly with herself and delivers the memorable, bittersweet refrain, “… because you’re mine in my mind” over a saucy back beat. Ellis envelops the elegiac “Bury Me in the Sky” with his finely-honed fingerpicking chops as she again shows her way with literate, evocative lyrics that include addressing death without being maudlin or ghoulish.

The exuberant folk rock of “Jump On” benefits from the propulsive and melodic electric guitar of Ellis as Richardson makes an impassioned call to grab the important things in life before “the train leaves the station.” The achingly beautiful, shimmering and hypnotic “Midnight, MS,” with water as a vehicle of salvation for a woman, a town and life that literally floods all expectations, avoids melancholia through the defiant edge in Richardson’s assertive, full-bodied vocal. “Devil on a Sunday” treads crossover territory also explored by Lucinda Williams as Richardson and her group, led by Ellis’ slinky slide guitar, get rocking with a lusty nod to letting it rip on the Sabbath that would make legendary rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson snap her fingers.

“Daughter” should carry a “Parental Warning” sticker, as it is the most heartbreaking song to date about the loss felt when a child grows up and leaves the nest. The drama of “Roll the Stone Away” takes an oblique religious slant as a means of finding personal salvation. The anthem-like title track makes reference to Richardson finding her “true north” when, “…the logical, mathematical and practical, the magical gets lost.” The surging train rhythm of the rollicking “Stop Jerkin’ My Chain” gives her license to go from insinuating and sensuous to demanding with “Baby, stop jerkin’ my chain” as a mantra. The concluding track, “Virginia,” is a poignant and moving solo ballad with Richardson engaged in a cleanly-picked dialogue with her acoustic guitar as she delivers her touching story about a social injustice done to a couple in the state of Virginia after 9/11. It is a fitting finale to a remarkable journey through the music of an important new artist.
- Dave Rubin, Staff Writer Guitar Edge Magazine