Jennifer Kimball

Jennifer Kimball is a singer and songwriter who formed the folk duo The Story with Jonatha Brooke.<ref name="twsSEPmm02">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Ankeny">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Career

Jennifer Kimball and Amherst College friend Jonatha Brooke began playing music together in the 1980s. They performed regularly during their college years.<ref name=twsSEPw01>Template:Cite news</ref> Their folk songs were marked by "witty wordplay and sumptuous pop harmonies," according to one music critic.<ref name="twsSEPw03">Template:Cite news</ref> Critics noted a resemblance between their music and earlier artists such as Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon in terms of excellent musicianship, singing, and writing.<ref name=twsSEPw15>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=twsSEPmm12/> Kimball graduated from Amherst in 1986.<ref name=tws11nov505>Template:Cite news</ref>

They called themselves The Story. One critic wrote "Jennifer Kimball played the Art Garfunkel role in The Story" and contributed "high ethereal harmonies."<ref name=twsSEPmm88>Template:Cite news</ref> In 1989, the duo played the coffeehouse folk circuit and radio which exemplified the "folk-rock singer-songwriter aesthetic," according to one account.<ref name=twsSEPw01/> Kimball and Brooke "burst to fame" with this combination.<ref name="twsSEPmm01">Template:Cite news</ref> They created a demo called Over Oceans and were promptly signed to the independent label Green Linnet which, in 1991, issued the duo's debut full-length album, Grace in Gravity. Later Elektra Records signed The Story and reissued their debut.

Their second album, The Angel in the House, was released in 1993.<ref name=twsSEPmm08>Template:Cite news</ref> One critic raved about the "exquisite arrangements and tricky, pitch-perfect harmonies by Ms. Brooke and her vocal partner, Jennifer Kimball," and added they "are the last word in elegant folk-pop refinement."<ref name=twsSEPmm08/> The album featured "moody jazz and Brazilian-flavored arrangements" and "the duo's harmonies, which usually begin in a comfortably folkish vein, frequently stray into precise chromatic dissonance" and had a "sophisticated international flavor."<ref name=twsSEPmm08/> Their song "Over Oceans" was used as a background for dance by choreographer Kristen Caputo.<ref name=twsSEPmm11>Template:Cite news</ref> The songs contemplate a woman's conflicting desires for love and achievement and the need to shake off the romantic myth of a male rescuer.<ref name=twsSEPmm12>Template:Cite news</ref>

Another critic discussed the contrast between the patter between songs and the songs themselves, noting the duo's "levity" between heavy songs about "God, church, death, female oppression, self-suppression, mothers and daughters."<ref name=twsSEPw12/> Their songs adroitly avoided "heavy-handedness" with a certain "winning buoyancy of tune and/or spirit" with "sophisticated harmonic changes whose intriguing hooks come at you cockeyed and sideways more often than they swoop down from the heavens."<ref name=twsSEPw12>Template:Cite news</ref> The duo were compared with artists such as Suzanne Vega and Indigo Girls.<ref name=twsSEPw13>Template:Cite news</ref> Another reviewer gave the duo mixed reviews: "intriguingly distorted harmonies and interesting turns of phrase" but some "attempts at cleverness overreached" and there was "a painfully obvious unrecorded song about dieting and a silly, albeit self-consciously so, stab at voguing a la Madonna."<ref name=twsSEPw13/> Another wrote their "music can alternate between heart-rending poetry and infectious flights of fancy."<ref name=twsSEPmm09>Template:Cite news</ref>

Solo albums

Kimball and Brooke dissolved their musical partnership in 1994, while Kimball performed her songs in a variety of venues and continued to write music.

In 1998, Kimball released the album Veering from the Wave. A Washington Post critic applauded the singing as "handsome" and the songwriting as excellent.<ref name=twsSEPw03/> In 1999, Kimball opened for folk artists such as Tom Rush.<ref name=twsSEPmm10>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2000, she was a featured performer at the Eli Whitney Folk Festival in New Haven.<ref name=twsSEPmm14>Template:Cite news</ref> Her song "Meet Me in the Twilight" received radio airplay, including on San Francisco station KPFA.<ref name=twsSEPmm17>Template:Cite news</ref> She's recorded with other artists including Wayfaring Strangers, Session Americana and Tony Trischka.<ref name=twsSEPmm01/><ref name=twsSEPmm04>Template:Cite news</ref> Kimball's music has been described as "quirky and oh-so-urban suburban" and a "sultry roots singer" with the "aching breath of a mezzo."<ref name=twsSEPmm01/>

Kimball released her CD Oh Hear Us in 2006.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> One critic wrote "her songs still ripple with eccentric surprise, sudden twists, and "A-ha!" moments."<ref name=twsSEPmm01/>

In 2007 she worked part-time as a horticulturalist and studied landscape design at Harvard.<ref name=twsSEPmm02/> She commented: "It's a lovely way to keep the head 'free' while working outside and dreaming up songs, designs, novels." She sang and played at Boston's Lizard Lounge with musicians including guitarist Duke Levine, lap steel player Kevin Barry, drummer Bill Beard, bassist Richard Gates, and guest artists including Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst, Rose Polenzani, Anne Heaton, and Rose Cousins.<ref name=twsSEPmm02/>

Since 2009, Kimball has performed with Wintery Songs in Eleventy Part Harmony, a loose collective of Boston-area female musicians she initiated with Rose Polenzani to perform eclectic seasonal music. The group has featured core members such as Rose Cousins and Laura Cortese<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> along with a revolving cast of collaborators that has included Catie Curtis, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O'Donovan. The group released an eponymous EP in 2014 and a full-length album of original, traditional and modern seasonal songs, Hark, in 2015, with contributions from Kris Delmhorst and Anais Mitchell. The group continues to perform annual holiday shows each December.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The Boston Globe described them as "a veritable supergroup of some of the finest local singer-songwriters."<ref name=twsSEPmm05>Template:Cite news</ref>

Personal

At the beginning of her career, Kimball also worked as a children's book designer for Little, Brown and she has also studied landscape design and ecology at Boston Architectural College.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Kimball has performed to raise money for charitable organizations such as Massachusetts Families in Need<ref name="twsSEPmm03">Template:Cite news</ref> and she supports the cause of helping women's shelters.<ref name="twsSEPmm06">Template:Cite news</ref> She is a mother with one son and lives in the Boston, Massachusetts area.

Discography

Jennifer Kimball

Album	Year	Label	Notes	References
Grace in Gravity	1991		part of The Story	<ref name=twsSEPw01/>
Angel in the House	1993	Elektra	part of The Story	<ref name="twsSEPw01"/>
Veering from the Wave	1998	Philips; Imaginary Road	solo debut album	<ref name=twsSEPmm17/>
Oh Hear Us	2006	Epoisse Records
Avocet	2017	Epoisse Records

External links

• Bio at her website
• Jennifer Kimball at Discogs