SHORT STORIES • Tom Kimmel
Who's your daddy. This is one spiritual, soulful cat, and I love the way he writes and sings his songs. There's a blood red gospel vein imbedded in the heart of his tunes, pumping life through them. Tom came up a dirt poor Alabama boy and grew into a high thinking, deep feeling man of letters, and you can hear the whole evolution in his voice, and in his beautiful words. He's a wise, womanizing southern groovador of rare dimension. Also really funny.
Kimmel's had successes along the way. Two of his songs ended up on a Randy Travis inspirational CD. This recently led to the songs getting picked up for global attention on the blockbuster TV series Touched by an Angel. Not only that, but the show named a two part episode after his song, "Shallow Water, pts. 1 and 2." In the first part alone, the song appears numerous times, sung by Randy Travis, Keb' Mo', and others. Tom's also had cuts by Tracy Byrd, Linda Ronstadt, Shawn Colvin, and Joe Cocker.
Short Stories was co-produced by the artist and Cliff Goldmacher at Cliff's Walk-In Closet in Nashville. (Where the fine record on Jen Cohen was also done, see other reviews). The players and singers on the record are all personal favorites of mine. The core band is Mark Prentice and John Gardner on bass and drums, with George Marinelli on electric guitar, but many fine players and singers make memorable contributions.
Great co-writers include Michael Lille, Lisa Aschman, Jennifer Kimball, Mark Luna, Tom Prasada-Rao, Pierce Pettis, Buddy Mondlock, and Elizabeth Vidal, and Cliff Goldmacher. I'll bet any of them will tell you that writing with TK is going to produce a soulful tune, that's his trademark. I've fallen in love with Tom Kimmel's songs, they hit you right where you live. They come from a deep place, and they bring you to one, and then you want to stay there. Any record, any songwriter that can do that has my attention. • FG
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