This week’s String show notes is an adapted transcript of Episode 291.
A few weeks ago Kim Richey came out to Riverside Revival in East Nashville, WMOT’s venue away from home, to perform at our concert series Wired In. She brought her full band. She charmed us all from the get-go. And while Kim was there to promote a new record, she played some of the songs that we fans fell in love with over her three decade career - “This Love” “Wreck Your Wheels” and even the first song off of her debut self-titled album from 1995 - “Those Words We Said.”
When Kim appeared on The String for the first time way back in 2018 (celebrating her album Edgeland), I told the story of how I heard that track and that album at a headphone listening station at a record store in New York and felt like it was just the sound I’d been searching for. It was an ear candy fusion of smart Nashville songwriting, a crystal voice, and jangle pop meets country production. It was the essence of Americana before it even had a name - forward looking, thoughtful, and soulful.
So I signed on as a super fan. I went to Kim Richey shows whenever possible. I picked up every album as they came along - Bittersweet in 1997, the underrated Glimmer in 1999 - and Rise in 2002 - possibly her career best, with its head bobbing and gorgeous “This Love.” And the great work never let up. Kim Richey hasn’t been wildly prolific, but that’s cool. Her music always comes along at just the right time.
And this is that time, because in late May, she released her first LP of new songs in six years, the pop-timistically titled Every New Beginning. She worked with Doug Lancio - the veteran guitarist and music director noted for his time working with Bob Dylan and Patty Griffin. She’d been writing recently with fellow Nashville artists including Don Henry, Ashley Campell and Aaron Lee Tasjan, but they also combed through a lot of uncut material from years past.
“A lot of the songs are older songs that just never got recorded, because I just have such a huge back catalog of songs, because that's all I did was write, and especially when I was on a major label. We toured a little bit, right when the record came out, and then that was it. And so I was home a lot…They're on the computer, and I have just tons of songs. So I'll go through them. And sometimes I have no recollection whatsoever, but it's me singing it.”
So at 67 years of age, Kim Richey is a certified Americana/country veteran, but it’s worth remembering that she’s not been a full-on professional as long as many of her peers. Like Mary Gauthier, she was a relatively late bloomer, landing her life-changing record deal with Mercury Nashville in the mid 1990s at age 37. She’s been wondering to herself if this is her last album, and she knows this peculiar life’s work has a feast/famine quality that never lets up. “Rollercoastery” she calls it, making up a word perfect for an Ohio native.
“I love making records, I love writing songs, and I love being in the studio, and I love playing for people. But all the other stuff just wears you down, like the travel, you know? I'm not in a bus, so we're driving everywhere. And a lot of times it's me driving and just just carrying stuff. I feel like I'm a Sherpa, you know, rather than a musician. But then when I think about not doing it, it's like…who are we going to be then?”
So this is my way of telling Kim Richey that she’s still a masterful artist with a lovely, disarming personality. Every New Beginning is yet another lushly comfortable and thought-provoking album. As long as she’s out there singing, I’m alright, to coin a phrase.
Check out this acoustic performance of "Joy Rider" with her co-writer Aaron Lee Tasjan.
