And the Hello and the Joker on songwriting. This is Brian, here as always with Simon and joining

us for episode 149 is a veteran Grammy-nominated American singer and

songwriter who first came to prominence in the early 90s and went on to become a

Doyenne of the Nashville music scene. In March of last year she released her

superb eighth album, Edgland, and we met with her while she was over in the

UK a couple of months later to chat about the album and her songwriting in general.

We are delighted to welcome the terrific Kim Ritchie to the show.

We chatted with Kim backstage at Birmingham Town Hall where she was co-headlining that night along with fellow

Nashville songwriting heavyweight Gretchen Peters in fact we actually

interviewed Gretchen that same afternoon for episode 141 we did indeed

what an enjoyable afternoon that was.

Yeah. Our guest was born in 1956 in Zanesville, Ohio and grew up in Kettering just outside

Dayton where she moved with her family when she was just two. The soundtrack to her youth was a lot of

top-40 pop. Among her favourite records were Janice Joplin's Me and Bobby McGee and the

loving Spoonfuls Do You Believe in Magic. Kim's aunt also owned a record shop where Kim would enjoy rummaging in the 45's bin.

The records themselves had no outer sleeves which obviously had the artist's picture on them,

which she credits with and I quote, making songs carry more weight than

personalities.

Kim sang in choirs and in church and took up guitar in high school.

She played in various bands while studying at Western Kentucky University but didn't entertain the possibility of a career in music until much later, although she had started writing songs by that point.

After completing her studies, our guests did a lot of traveling and worked a variety of jobs,

including in a rehab facility at an osteopathic school of medicine and as an animal protection advocate.

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