The Performing Songwriter
January/February 1996 issue

Kim Forehand
Going Home

If the liner notes for DIY’s were nominated for Grammy’s, I’d cast my vote for Kim’s. They’ll be your first clue to the wit and wisdom she possesses. The eleven songs on Going Home will seal the verdict. Forehand is a treasure.

“Lawn Ornament Freaks” is the long overdue ode to the tacky and tasteless in everyone’s neighborhood. “Down At The Mini Mart” is another slice of life from our American pie. Forehand’s breathy vocal might remind you of Nanci Griffith, but her unique vision will tell you this is an original.

Forehand fleshes out the love between a father and a daughter in “Margaret’s Song” with lyrical glee. After hearing “The Lunch Song”, “Living In A College Town” or “The Fried Chicken Song” you’ll come to believe Forehand could write a song about the phone book and make it interesting.

The all acoustic production and Forehand’s understated delivery are just right. While some artists might poke you in the ribs to make sure you got it, Forehand lets it all float by, like a feather on the breeze. Chances are you’ll catch it.

THE KANSAS CITY STAR newspaper
Arts and Entertainment Section
Wednesday, May 12, 1993

Consummate guitarist was again outstanding, even by his standards.
By John Mark Eberhart, Staff Writer

“Unique” is a word that has lost power through careless use. Strictly speaking, you can’t be “kind of Unique”; that’s like “kind of Pregnant” or “kind of penniless.”

Michael Hedges and Kim Forehand, who performed Monday for 450 people at the Folly Theater, are unique. Each writes, plays and sings songs that could not be created by anyone else.

Hedges, the featured performer, constructs symphonies for six strings. His technique is so far ahead of his peers that it’s insane. Not content to pick and strum, he slaps the guitar body for emphasis, then grazes a string, producing a harmonic that floats in the air like a soap bubble until he slashes it with a finger-slam to the neck. Close you eyes and you’d swear two people were playing.

Even by Hedges’ high standards, the show Monday was stunning. Furious rhythmic instrumentals like “The Rootwitch” were faultless, as were tender meditations such as “I carry your heart,” the e.e. cummings poem that Hedges set to music for his album “Taproot.”

He also plays harp guitar, which has the usual complement of strings plus five bass strings. Anyone who saw Hedges open for Crosby, Stills and Nash last year at Starlight Theatre knows the wonder of watching him draw grace from this awkward-looking instrument. “Because It’s There” showcased an ethereal melodic line set off by rumbling rhythms.

The man can sing, too. “Face Yourself” put his resonant tenor to noble use, as did a cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.”
For the fans, however, there’s nothing like the moment when he straps on his Martin D-28 acoustic for “Aerial Boundaries” and “Rickover’s Dream.” Hedges played the famous 1984 instrumentals back-to-back Monday, summoning a mood now brooding and intense, now hypnotic, now peaceful.

Hedges is making a new album, and previews from it such as “The Road to Return” revealed an artist who is turning away from technical ecstasy and toward soulful refinement.

Regardless of approach, however, Hedges sounds like Hedges. Most musicians reveal influences and borrowing, and some evince outright thievery. Michael Hedges’ influences must live in another dimension. He is a strikingly original artist whose realities are wilder that most mortals’ dreams.

He’s funny, too. Commenting on the Folly’s lovely acoustics, he said, “Boy, it sure is nice in here. It’s just like I’m in my bathtub.”

But if Hedges is funny, Kim Forehand is hilarious. Here’s how the Lawrence resident introduced herself to a crowd that wasn’t expecting her:

“Hi, I’m Kim Forehand? And I’m your opening act.”

Her songs are a riot. “Lawn Ornament Freak” presented her as an Ozark obsessive, searching for perfect yard concrete. “Stringbean Man” lovingly depicted a guy who’s “looking like a Gumby.”

“My honey says when I do that song it makes him feel immortalized,” she said
.
Her “honey,” Rich Niebaum, provided some aggressive fretwork for two songs, including a wonderful cover of “I Heard it Through the Grapevine.”

Forehand’s humor is just one of her gifts. “Cinderella’s Song” reflected on the peril of living happily ever after. “The Earth Day Song” jabbed at “noisy little humans” and their “Twinkies, cars and satellite TVs.”

And if she was nervous about preceding a guitar hero onstage, she didn’t show it. After some trouble tuning her own guitar, she smiled sweetly and said, “It’s embarrassing to play out of tune at a Michael Hedges concert, isn’t it?”