This picture is of Lori McKenna playing at the folk and bluegrass festival at Snowbird last summer. It was great to get to see her live and even more so to have the privilege of meeting her. Lori is one of the premier songwriters of our time and has a very distinctive vocal style - Heartrending! That's a pretty good description of most of her songs too. She has a very gritty, down to earth way with a tune that really gets to the emotional center. She claims to only know how to write sad songs. It was quite a shock to find out her personality is quite the opposite! To get an idea of her approach to a song check out her cover of Cindy Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" on Youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L3GYAaqbGA. It put's a very different spin on a song I always though was pretty frivolous. She would probably still be relatively obscure if Faith Hill hadn't gotten ahold of some of her music and based her "Fireflies" album on several of Lori's songs including the title track and "Stealing Kisses". This got Lori a major label deal and an appearance on Oprah with Faith. Tim McGraw produced her "Unglamorous" cd. This all resulted in some air time on country radio although she never had a major hit (not surprising; her sound isn't typical radio fair). Apparently her major label deal wasn't to be. She recently switched to an indie label. Probably for the best. She's much too eclectic to follow the dictates of main stream music. I'm looking forward to her next release. She's been writing up a storm all summer. She does an amazing job balancing music and family. She still resides in the small town of Stoughton, Mass, 30 minutes from Boston with her husband and 5 kids and rarely makes it out West, so it was a real privalege to have her out here last year. Anyway, there you go. Another worthy member of my top 10! Do yourself a favor and give her a listen!
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Lori McKenna
This picture is of Lori McKenna playing at the folk and bluegrass festival at Snowbird last summer. It was great to get to see her live and even more so to have the privilege of meeting her. Lori is one of the premier songwriters of our time and has a very distinctive vocal style - Heartrending! That's a pretty good description of most of her songs too. She has a very gritty, down to earth way with a tune that really gets to the emotional center. She claims to only know how to write sad songs. It was quite a shock to find out her personality is quite the opposite! To get an idea of her approach to a song check out her cover of Cindy Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" on Youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L3GYAaqbGA. It put's a very different spin on a song I always though was pretty frivolous. She would probably still be relatively obscure if Faith Hill hadn't gotten ahold of some of her music and based her "Fireflies" album on several of Lori's songs including the title track and "Stealing Kisses". This got Lori a major label deal and an appearance on Oprah with Faith. Tim McGraw produced her "Unglamorous" cd. This all resulted in some air time on country radio although she never had a major hit (not surprising; her sound isn't typical radio fair). Apparently her major label deal wasn't to be. She recently switched to an indie label. Probably for the best. She's much too eclectic to follow the dictates of main stream music. I'm looking forward to her next release. She's been writing up a storm all summer. She does an amazing job balancing music and family. She still resides in the small town of Stoughton, Mass, 30 minutes from Boston with her husband and 5 kids and rarely makes it out West, so it was a real privalege to have her out here last year. Anyway, there you go. Another worthy member of my top 10! Do yourself a favor and give her a listen!
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