The Chattanooga Market

On the title track of her debut album “Today,” Wendy Jans sings “Today I’ll walk in bare feet even if it rains…” setting the tone for an album about living life intentionally and not being afraid to live and love outside the lines.

Jans, who is originally from Iowa but now calls Nashville home, has garnered attention not only for her unique voice but also her vocal range. While studying opera as a mezzo-soprano, she sang twice at Carnegie Hall, but it’s Wendy’s smooth and intimately soulful alto voice that prevails in the music of “Today.” On “Invincible”, her low voice is an unexpected juxtaposition from her petite frame. Disarmingly versatile, she exudes emotion while embracing the stylistic diversity of each song on the album.

Wendy Jans is respected for her songwriting abilities and collaboration as a co-writer. She came to Nashville to entrench herself into the songwriting community and quickly garnered a publishing deal with a Music Row publisher. A finalist in the International Song Search with honorable mentions in the Billboard World Song Contest and Nashville Song Search, Wendy was named winner of the River Bluff Performing Songwriting Competition and the Nashville Trowbridge Symposium. Eleven of the twelve tracks on Today were written or co-written by Wendy, with the only exception being an innovative interpretation on Lionel’s Richie’s classic “Hello”.

Continue reading On Stage 6/29 – Wendy Jans

Kate Klim was five years old when her family inherited a piano, 9 years old when she received her first lesson, and 11 years old when an unsuccessful audition for the film “Life with Mikey” caused her to rethink her career as a moviestar. This was fortunate, because the singer/songwriter Club Passim has since called a “local rising star” then turned to music.

With roots in Palatine, Illinois and Downingtown, Pennsylvania, Kate was raised on a steady diet of Carole King , Paul Simon, Billy Joel and John Lennon. Later on, her influences grew to include Patty Griffin, Jonatha Brooke, Chris Trapper and Garrison Starr.

Kate’s musical success in her hometown led her to Berklee College of Music in Boston. It was here that Kate worked on her skills as a writer and performer, and became involved with the music community that had produced icons like Bob Dylan years before, and Tracy Chapman and Patty Griffin in the recent past. Soon enough her song “Heaven Help Me” led off the 2003 “Best of Boston” singer-songwriter compilation CD, and her audience began to grow. Within a few years of her debut as a singer/songwriter, she was opening for artists like Shawn Colvin, Lucy Kaplansky, Richard Shindell and Ollabelle.

Continue reading On Stage 6/29 – Kate Klim

Keith Moody’s guitar is essentially a part of him, an extra appendage, if you will. He and his Paul Reed Smith McCarty have been through some hard times, and some good times. Keith is proud of every knick and scrape his axe has taken up ‘til now.

“I have a real relationship with that guitar,” explains Keith. “Most PRS’ you see are very nice, and kept pristine in cases, and mine has been played in about every dive bar across the Southeast…it smells, and it has pieces rubbed off of it and knicks out of it. Give me about 20 more years, and hopefully it will be beaten like Willie’s. That thing is like a part of me.”

Just how close Moody is with his instrument is revealed immediately the minute he launches into one of his soul-searing solos. The two become one as the 27-year-old morphs easily as he plays among the strings: one minute he’s channeling the heart of a 60-year-old black man in a blues number that will melt the house and your heart, the next he’s calling up ghosts of Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn in a full-tilt, scorching rocker. Oh, he also knows his way around a Texas-tinged tear-jerker, too, in case those weren’t enough to pique your interest and get your toes tapping. Moody possesses a maturity and depth that belies his young age, and that depth no doubt seeps into every note of his music. A triple threat, he not only can sing and tear it up on the guitar, he also writes on a level far above most of his pop peers. His new album is evidence of just how far the singer/songwriter has come in such a short time, and of the places he will go if talent has anything to do with it.
Continue reading On Stage 6/22 – Keith Moody