Tom Kimmel | Southern tour

Tour Leader

Singer, songwriter, entertainer, poet and teacher, Tom Kimmel is all of these things and more.

Since 1980 dozens of Tom’s compositions have been recorded by a host of major artists, including Linda Ronstadt, Johnny Cash, Joe Cocker, Art Garfunkel and Randy Travis. They’ve been featured in films from Twins to Serendipity and Runaway Bride, and in television shows from Captain Kangaroo and Touched By An Angel to Dawson’s Creek.
An award-winning artist in his own right, he has released seven solo albums, published a book of poems and led songwriting workshops and classes around the country and in Europe.
Once an eclectic rock and roller, Tom found his voice as a singer-songwriter while touring with Nanci Griffith in the early 90’s. A New Folk winner at the Kerrville Folk Festival in ’93, he began performing solo, stressing a lean, acoustic approach to his music and bringing a humorous spirit to his poetry and storytelling.

After releasing two critically praised major label albums (in ’87 and ’90), Tom released Bones in 1994, his first independent album. It was followed by Short Stories in 1999, which featured guest performances by Emmylou Harris, the Fairfield Four, Jerry Douglas and other Nashville luminaries. Shallow Water (2002) is a collection of spirit-centered songs and hymns, and Light of Day (2004) features bare vocal-guitar tracks recorded in Tom’s home studio.

A volume of poems, The Sweetest & the Meanest, was published in 2006, and Never Saw Blue, an anthology of TK songs featured in film and TV, arrived in the fall of 2008.
Tom’s most recent projects include well-received albums written and recorded with two trios: The Waymores (2013) (with Don Henry and Sally Barris), and The New Agrarians (2014) (with Kate Campbell and Pierce Pettis). And Tom still loves performing with his first trio, The Sherpas (with Tom Prasada-Rao and Michael Lille),
A self described “closet poet” until the publication of The Sweetest and the Meanest, Tom has been a featured writer at book festivals and writing retreats, and his poems have been published in a number of poetry and literary journals. And for many of his fans the spoken word element in his concerts is as special as his songs.

In demand as a songwriting teacher and lecturer, Tom frequently offers workshop instruction tying the creative spirit to the nuts and bolts of composition.
Add all this together and you’ll find that Tom Kimmel is definitely all these things and more. He’s a unique artist who continues to write, record, perform and inspire at the highest levels.