The Woodshed Podcast 62 featuring Kim Jennings

Born in suburban Massachusetts, Kim has been singing since the ripe old age of 5. The oldest of eight children in an Irish Catholic family in the Boston suburbs, Kim grew up listening to the music of Clancy Brothers, Jim Croce, and James Taylor. “I didn’t know it back then, but traditional Irish music and the 1970s singer-songwriters got deep into my heart, and now influence me in ways I never realized,” says Kim of her musical influences.After teaching herself to play piano while in middle school, Kim picked up a guitar after college. The songwriting bug bit her only after several years of playing covers. “There’s something about finding a creative and supportive community that has inspired my muse! The talented musicians in the suburbs of Boston have really inspired me to open up and just let the songs come out.”Writing at a feverish pace for a woman balancing work, motherhood, and family life is now something she can’t remember being without. “It’s been such a positive influence in my life. My friends ask me how I do it – and I tell them I am actually more balanced as a person now. The hardest part of it all is finding the time to sit still and just be.”In the summer of 2009, looking ahead to the completion of Kim’s debut CD, she started talking big goals with fellow singer-songwriter Dan Cloutier. The next thing you know, a conversation went something like this: “You have an album coming out. I have an album coming out. What can we do to help each other? And help other people too? And support the local music we know and love so well? Hey, I know…let’s start a record label!!” And so, Birch Beer Records was born.My Own True North, her first full-length CD, debuted in 2009. My Own True North is an acoustic-folk album, recorded at Humming Lake Studio with Seth Connelly. Getting some traction in the local area, in 2010 Kim won Best Female Vocalist at the Worcester Music Awards.Her sophomore effort, the indie-rock, band-driven Here Now, was recorded at Bang-A-Song Studios with Tony Goddess and at RockSalt Studio with Eric Salt, and released in 2013. Kim and Eric co-produced Here Now, with an ear towards lush musical landscapes, layered arrangements, and blending and building harmonies – even though the bulk of the tracks were recorded in live sessions. “One of my favorite comments about this album is that it rocks – but it’s still true to my acoustic roots. The songs, the lyrics, and the arc of the story I tell is just as important with this set of songs as it was before,” says Kim. Here Now was nominated for Best CD in the 2014 Worcester Music Awards.In 2014 , one of Kim’s newest songs, “When We Are Broken,” was nominated as a finalist in the Eventide Arts 2014 Songfest songwriting competition (Cape Cod, MA), and Kim earned an Honorable Mention in the 2014 Solarfest Songwriting Showcase Competition (VT). 2015 brought a self-imposed songwriting challenge: write a new song every week for the first 3 months of the year. She made it work for 8 weeks. She says: “It was a good run, even if I didn’t write all 12 new songs! Writing consistently, trying not to worry over whether or not the new songs are any good, is better than not writing at all. 8 songs is a good start, there’s certainly more writing to do, and all the new tunes need work. But, getting myself to write consistently is planting the seeds for what my next recording project can be, and getting those wheels turning again.”And, since it’s true that each ending is its own beginning, as Birch Beer Records came to a close, in 2017 Kim – along with Dan Cloutier and Ricardo Barraza – formed The Great Molasses Flood, an acoustic folk-rock band with powerful stories to tell through beautiful harmonies.