Videos on Youtube.
Music at Birch Beer Records Store.

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.

While a student at Harvard, Kim spent a year in the Radcliffe Choral Society, and two years in the close harmony group The Radcliffe Pitches.  Kim recalls, “There was one year at Harvard where I think I listened to Ella Fitzgerald CDs every single day.  She could sing anything with that voice.  And the voices of women who were writing then – their ability to express themselves, find their voice, and be accepted for that – it was so freeing to see that happening.”  Tours to both eastern Europe and Asia provided amazing insights into the power of music across the globe.  “I’ll never forget singing an Ave Maria in a beautiful church in Krakow, Poland after having visited Auschwitz with the choral society.  Some women in the group – their families had left Poland during World War II and they were the first to return.  It was so powerful – and I know I wasn’t the only one in tears as we sang in the chapel that evening.”

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 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.

Kim self-released the 4-song demo Draft in 2008, and recorded her debut full-length CD at Humming Lake Studio with Seth Connelly.  My Own True North was released in December 2009, with a CD release show on Saturday, December 4, 2009 at the Amazing Things Arts Center in Framingham, MA.