Colleen Kitchen Perspective on Back Porch People

My name is Colleen Kitchen.   I sing and play keyboards and a few other things.   I also write genre-bender songs. 

I remember listening to jazz and Burl Ives from a young age.

I didn't decide anything.   Music chose me.  I was very unsettled when I tried to resist or use logic and common sense. 

Three years ago I was doing mainly jazz, but honestly jazz is just too much for most people.  I wasn't performing my originals much, because it's a bit of friction to get other musicians to learn them and the prevailing wisdom is "people want to hear covers" anyway.  On the other hand, every classic standard was once an "original" that no one had ever heard.   I just decided one day, "screw it, I'm going to do them."  My originals have  a fair amount of jazz color to them, while being prettty solidly Americana in most other ways.   And when I finally lucked onto the personnel for "Back Porch People"  we were able to render them live closer to how I had originally envisioned them.   I asked an AI to listen to a track  and it came back with "sophisticated Americana with shades of Post Modern Jukebox."  Yeah, we'll take that.

I explore themes mostly unrelated to so-called "romantic love."  Why do I need to write another squishy love song?   It's been done.   I'm more interested in speaking my own experiences in a way that would pass the Bechdel test.  It seems like female artists are acceptable if (first and foremost) their appearance is tailored to the male gaze, and  secondly the subject of the lyrics is male-centric, usually in a love context.   When a straight female expresses the female experience without centering males, that's "niche."   I have a song about mansplaining, for example.   And several about not being seen or valued.   Along with some "niche" ones about mushrooms, songwriting, and dogs.    

If I could tour with anyone it would be Brandi Carlile.  I love her and some say my music reminds them of her.

I want my music to resonate with their lived experience, if it's something they have experienced.   And for those who haven't lived it, I want it to be manifest to them in a way they can understand it better (though apparently that's a tall order.)  

No I never practice.  The music just flows out through me straight from God.   GAAAAAH!  What rubbish!  Of course I practice..... a LOT!    and so does anyone else worth listening to.    What has changed over time is the material.  

I worked in IT, internet security,  and software development.  

Well, success aint ever going to be making loads of $$.  As long as I stay in the black I'm OK with that.  My favorite thing is when someone tells me my music touched them, or clarified something for them.    

I would declare "Live Music Week" one week a year where streaming services were offline, personal players didn't work, and playing recorded music in public was illegal.  So that people could get back to the genuine human experience of hearing AND PARTICIPATING in music in the real world with all its acoustic unknowns.  Music, like sports, is best when it is BOTH a live participatory AND spectator experience.