Kim Richey
Kim Richey has a storied list of accomplishments in Nashville. She has written No.1 hits: “Nobody Wins” for Radney Foster, as well as “Believe Me Baby (I Lied)” for Trisha Yearwood, which earned Richey a Grammy nomination for Best Country Song. She’s also penned or co-written cuts by Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patty Loveless and Brooks & Dunn, among many more. With the release of Every New Beginning on Friday, Richey demonstrates how artistic success and longevity come from picking the right collaborators and staying true to herself. Despite her consistently impressive songwriting, it might be surprising to hear that Richey does not have a particular writing practice.
“I’m terrible — I’m so lazy,” she says with a laugh. Richey finds that the co-writing process energizes her. “I love collaborating with other people. I’ve met some of my best friends through sitting down and writing songs. I can’t think of a better way to spend a day: with somebody whose company you really enjoy and doing something creative.”
Richey, who grew up in Ohio, arrived in Nashville via Kentucky and Colorado. In the late 1980s, she worked at The Bluebird Cafe and played with the aforementioned Foster, Nashville rock ’n’ roll songsmith Bill Lloyd and sometimes with the pair’s eponymous country duo Foster & Lloyd. Later, Richey spent a five-year stint in London, but Nashville ultimately called her back.
“There’s no place like it,” says Richey. “As much as the city has changed, the music there is fantastic. There’s so much collaboration, so many world-class musicians there. Nashville has always seemed a bit more down-home and more community-minded.”
During COVID lockdown, Richey spent a lot of time reminiscing about her life, an experience she later found she shared with many others. As a result, the songs she selected for New Beginnings — some from her archives and some brand-new, like the irresistible bop “Joy Rider” that she wrote with Aaron Lee Tasjan — focus on the past and the lessons we can learn from it.
The tour through Richey’s life begins with the bittersweet “Chapel Avenue.” She wrote the warm folk-rock tune with Don Henry, and it looks back at childhood with love and some regret. Richey played the song for her mother in the hospital shortly before she died. Though it’s a slower, gentler, more melancholy song than you might expect someone to pick to start a record, Richey wanted to feature it front and center because of how much it means to her, as she sings, “All the gold of yesterday / Is a debt I can’t repay.”
Ever one to give credit where it’s due, Richey extended our conversation to highlight the team that helped her bring the album to life. Producer and guitarist Doug Lancio “worked so hard on the tracking and guitars.” Richey was also excited to work with bassist Lex Price, of whom she’d been a longtime fan; you’ve heard Price with k.d. lang, among others. Richey met multi-instrumentalist Dan Mitchell for the first time while working on her 2010 album Wreck Your Wheels, and “I don’t think now I would make a record without him,” she says. “He’s a beautiful singer.” Neilson Hubbard taught himself to play drums while on tour with Richey, and he adds his distinctive approach to New Beginnings. Savannah Buist and Katie Larson of The Accidentals added lovely flourishes as well, on violin and cello, respectively.
For Richey, collaboration is important because it’s about bringing out the best in everyone in the room. It’s less about picking your battles than pushing yourself and those you’re working with to find something that thrills all of you.
“The philosophy for me is to not settle, not just have something that’s good enough,” Richey says. “I don’t think collaborating means rolling over and you don’t have a sense of yourself. If you’re confident in yourself, then it’s easier to collaborate. I do like collaborating with other people, but I don’t settle.”
