In a valley carved into the Smokey Mountains, the seeds of an Irish and Cherokee lineage grew deep roots and stretched to the stars, becoming a tree bearing rich fruit…the tree of songs by Greensboro, North Carolina native, Kim McLean.
Her ‘genre’… knows no bounds, her ‘format’…no limits. Kim McLean is first, last, and always…a songwriter. When the rest of the world finds nothing creative to sing about, Kim McLean will always have something to sing about.
From her Dove Award-winning, Count Your Blessing (the Martins), to the Judd’s reunion single, Stuck in Love, to CMT’s most requested video, Elisabeth (Billy Gilman), to a song on Bettye Lavette’s recent Grammy nominated project, Kim McLean is no stranger to having her songs recorded to make an impact. Her first radio single as an artist, “Angels and Eagles”, a duet with Dolly Parton hit Top Ten on the ICMA Charts and garnered a female vocalist and duo of the year nomination for the ICMA Awards.
Trisha Yearwood, Kelley Coffey, Tim McGraw, Lee Ann Womack, Jennifer Hanson, Cathie Lee Gifford, Shana Morrison, and over 200 other artists have recorded songs by Kim McLean with the recurring sentiment of “she said what I wanted to sing.” For a songwriter, that is perhaps the highest compliment. Her production of Lisa Brokop’s Hey Do You Know Me returned a CCMA “Album of the Year” nomination as well as a nod for “Song of the Year”. Her production work with Americana artist, Eve Selis has also produced award-winners. In 2008, Kim McLean joined Devon O’Day for a gift book/CD, Goodbye My Friend designed to help the bereaved pet owner, through Thomas Nelson Publishers.
Kim McLean was commissioned to write the quadrennial theme for International Missions for the Nazarene Church, O The Cross, which has now been translated into 126 different languages and is sung around the world, on it’s way to becoming a gospel standard. She also composed the theme for the international women’s conference, Come To The Fire.
As an innovative producer, a captivating artist, and inspired speaker, Kim McLean’s name appears on many projects. You’ve heard her music on TV’s JAG,
West Wing, Cold Case, Hope and Faith and others. As a recording artist in her own right on Hippie Chick Twang Records, Kim McLean has a new release, Rapunzel’s Escape, her first full-band studio project since 2004’s Happy Face. Her ‘sound’ is certainly influenced by the pure mountain melodies from her North Carolina roots, with a strong rock-a-billy and R&B feel, creating a hybrid Kim McLean calls “Appalachi-Groove”, a mountains-meet-Memphis musical edge. She’s produced and developed artists for Capitol, Sony/Columbia, and Warner Brothers along with several independent labels.
Her success shines even brighter in light of how her dream of music and higher education was cut short in her late teens, when a near fatal eating disorder almost took her life and stopped her studies in classical piano at University of North Carolina Greensboro. Treatment brought victory over the disease, but it was not until 2002 that she regained her hope of a higher education when she enrolled at Trevecca University. In 2006, she achieved her Bachelor’s degree in Music Business with honors, and in 2008, her Masters in Biblical Theology graduating at the top of her class. She is now Adjunct Professor of Songwriting at Trevecca, giving back to the university that gave her so much.
North Carolina will always be home to Kim McLean, and her rich origin there weaves its way into many of her songs, including a recent tribute she penned called North Carolina that she hopes will one day be considered one of her home state’s official songs. At the very least, the song shares the romance of a state that offers the best of everything from the mountains to the sea.
But when the day is done, and the excitement of the music “business” fades, you can hear the sound of a haunting mountain melody weaving its way through the hollows of Big Sky Heaven Blue Farm in Kingston Springs, Tennessee as a solitary figure, pen in hand, guitar at her heart lets her spirit speak the words that singers all dream of singing…because first, last, and always, Kim McLean is a songwriter.
Rapunzel’s Escape
Written-Produced-Performed
By Kim McLean
CD Available via iTunes, CDBaby, Amazon
www.KimMcLean.com
Also on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, ReverbNation, and DigitalRodeo
More About Kim McLean
Phil Sweetland
Music and Radio Contributor
The New York Times
Kim McLean’s original musical delivery is unique, self-described as “Appalachi-groove.” Her heritage combines Irish, Cherokee, and Appalachian strains, all of which magically appear in her songs. As a little girl, she adored listening to her grandmother – a pianist and songwriter herself – play the piano, teaching Kim everything from Chopin to Fats Waller’s boogie-woogie. As a result McLean’s style, sometimes beautifully summarized as “Mountains-Meet-Memphis,” showing up in the fact that she’s not only written several Country hits but also recently contributed a song to Bettye LaVette’s (The First Lady of Soul) Grammy-nominated Blues album.
In the late Sixties, we began to hear about what was then a new concept in Pop music, the “singer/songwriter.” James Taylor, Elton John, Joni Mitchell, and Carole King emerged as early superstars of that genre. Kim has some Joni influences, along with Tom Petty and J.J. Cale,
…but perhaps it’s better to call her a “Songwriter/Singer” than the other way around. Her songs have always come first, and everything else stems from that creative process.
