Kim Richey graduated from Fairmont East High School in 1975. She attended Western Kentucky University then transferred to Ohio University where she graduated with a degree in Environmental Education. After graduation, she traveled to Sweden, Boston, Colorado, Columbia, back to Colorado and then to Bellingham, WA. In 1988 she moved to Nashville, TN in 1988 after working in restaurants and Nature Centers to give music a try. She was signed to Mercury Records when she was 37 and began her 30 plus years long career as a recording artist. In the world of independent touring singer/songwriters that we honor, Kim may well be the poster child. She is a traveler, after all, musically, physically, emotionally. Not merely restless or rootless, it’s who she is.

Willing to follow where the music leads, she’s landed in New York, Nashville, London...working with a who’s who of producers...attracting a coterie of top-shelf genredefiners...Jason Isbell, Trisha Yearwood, Chuck Prophet, Carl Broemel (My Morning Jacket), Pat Sansone (Wilco)...for her critically-lauded projects...and also singing on records for Ryan Adams, Shawn Colvin, Isbell and Rodney Crowell and many others. Part of what draws them to the dusky honey of her crystalline alto is the way she writes: to and from the soul, never flinching from the conflicts and crushing moments, yet always finding dignity and resilience. Her arc of the human heart is true. True enough that over the years as a songwriter, Kim has written No.1 hits for Radney Foster (“Nobody Wins”) and Trisha Yearwood (“Believe Me Baby”), the latter for which she was Grammy-nominated, as well as songs for Mary Chapin Carpenter, Gretchen Peters, Patty Loveless, Jamie Lawson, Brooks and Dunn, Jim Lauderdale, Kathy Mattea and many more. Over the past two decades Kim has released ten critically acclaimed albums, been listed in the ‘Top 10 Albums of 1999’ in Time Magazine for her album Glimmer, plus received 4- stars in Rolling Stone and named ‘Alt-Country Album of the Year’ in People Magazine for her album Rise. Her 2013 release Thorn In My Heart was named in year’s end best lists by No Depression, The Boston Globe and The Associated Press. She has written two #1 singles and had four others hit Top 10. She has contributed backing vocals on albums by Trisha Yearwood, Ryan Adams, Shawn Colvin, Rodney Crowell and Jason Isbell to name a few.