The Colorful & Divergent Musical LEGACY of Songwriter KIMBERY MEGORAN

Possessing a proclivity for following her muse as a musical gypsy deeply immersed in the holistic sensibilities of 1960’s Hippie culture, with firm beliefs in cultivating a sense of community while cleansing one’s mind and body of all toxins propagated by contemporary culture, singer-songwriter Kimberly Megoran is finally set to release her debut album of original compositions spanning two decades of her illustrious and ever-evolving career.

Titled LEGACY and produced by Andy Reed at Reed Recording Company, she is also joined on each of these ten tracks by her son Sean Megoran, who plays lead guitar in this Mother & Son duo that is also known as MamaSong & the Boogie Child. 

A familiar face, voice, and creative force on the arts scene throughout the Great Lakes Bay Region for over two decades now, Kimberly is known not only as a musical artist but also as a colorfully gifted visual artist with a unique gift for creating impressionistic oil paintings, mosaics, and tie-dyed t-shirts inspired by the work of Picasso and Cezanne, yet much like her music, possessing a texture and detailed rendering distinctly all her own. 

With a Record Release Party for LEGACY set for Friday, January 10^th at White’s Bar in Saginaw from 6:00 - 10:00 PM and the following day in Midland at MI Element Grains & Grounds Brew Pub in Midland from 2:00 - 6:00 PM on Saturday, January 11^th,  when she’s not picking up a paint brush or a guitar pic  Kimberly also puts her hands to good use as a certified massage therapist, while sustaining and keeping all her talents in top shape through the cleansing strength and purity of Kangen water, which she also markets  as a distributor.

“My music and art are both inspired from within and encompass all that I am, all that I have done, and all that I intend to do.  It is inspired from dreams, from endurance, from patience, and from love,” she states with succinct, simple, and honest reflection.

Although Kimberly has crafted, written, and composed numerous original songs over the expanse of her two-decade long musical career, when asked what prompted her to finally record these musical gems she attributes the inspiration to her long-time friend and artistic supporter Ben Cohen, along with his wife Heather, who were both instrumental in organizing the successful FreeMusic Festival in Freeland from 2007-2013.

“I performed a show and after I finished Ben said to me, ‘You need to do an album of all your originals.’. recalls Kimberly.  “I’m 62-years old now and it crossed my mind before, but I didn’t know how to pull it together.  Ben told me to call him in one week because he had a surprise. I thought is Santa Claus coming and he said ‘pretty close’. He contacted some people and got the wheels rolling through setting up fundraisers and Kickstarter campaigns that successfully made this project a reality, raising close to $2,000.”

Kimberly says she began writing her first songs with musician Scott Baker as part of a songwriting group he organized at Dick Wagner’s old studio in downtown Saginaw. “I told Scott that I’d never written a song before and he said that was okay, so I would get together with him, Jeff Yantz, and Eric Janetsky and we’d work on our songwriting. We called ourselves The Snappers and did one show. I was so green and new back then, and sadly all those early songs are lost - we recorded them, but I have no idea where the tapes ended up.”

Now with LEGACY featuring ten songs on this album debut, Kimberly says she could easily record another album because she has at least a total of 20 original compositions that she feels good about.  “My writing style has changed over the years, and some of these songs on the new album like Chiefin’ on a Fence go back to 2004-2005, when I was also hanging out a lot with guitarist/songwriter Dave Kellan.”

The song “Counting No Time was also written back then, when I met my biological father and became aware of how much time I’d missed with that relationship, I thought the best way to process this was to simply nott count the time and remember Dave coming over and working with me to help flesh it out,” she continues.

Some of the newer songs on LEGACY such aa Diamonds and Michigan Gypsy took Kimberly to  new directions, stemming from long rehearsals and unexpected jam sessions.

Regarding the inspiration behind various narratives found within the lyrics of these ten eclectic songs  showcased on LEGACY, Kimberly says she never has any idea of what her next song is going to be about.  “The topic or story in each of my songs is nothing I sit down and think about,” she states. “Instead they  just come to me and through me. If you listen to my music, my timing will vary with each song, and rarely do I play any song the same way twice.”

“One summer I attended a songwriting workshop and we had to write one song over a 3-day weekend,” she recalls. “Much to my surprise, I ended up writing three songs that weekend and each one was written in a different style. The first one M119 is featured on the album, and started out slow  with a really nice melody and interesting lyrics that were different.  The next day I wrote the song Seasons and had a nice melody, but got bored with it so decided to just press the record button and start playing whatever music came to mind while rapping this set of lyrics that I simply spat out and had no idea where they came from. Thank God it got recorded, because I never would have remembered it.”

“Another song I wrote came to me when I got in the shower and had this melody going and all of a sudden the words came out. It’s not on the album, but is a song about different generations and a husband leaving, and then a child, and then a grandfather, and how that affects generations when somebody leaves.”

“Most recently, I wrote a song called Dirty Worms at the Earthworks Harvest Gathering this past summer that’s sort of a free flow,” she continues. “I think worms are cool because they come out of the dirty ground and roll  and wiggle around, so it’s about how I like dirty worms and dirty worms like me. It comes from gratitude and is a little risqué, but also a little bluesy.”

Although her music is difficult to classify because of its eclecticism, Kimberly classifies herself as a singer-songwriter more than a folk singer. “It’s difficult for me to classify my music because I’m not really folk and not rock music, though I do love to rock and love to play with a full band.  When I play with my son Sean’s band The Lucky Livingstons, for example, they take my original material to a whole new level.  I guess a good way to describe my music is Americana, because it has a blend of folk elements and different influences, so I’m not stuck in one genre.”

One of Kimberly’s many unique qualities as a performer is how she never performs any of her songs the same way twice.

“I can listen to something and it will influence me and something inside filters that as it goes through me and turns the song into something different. Each time I play a song it has a different twist. Because Sean and I have played these songs together a long time, when we were in the studio we recorded most of the tracks on LEGACY in four hours and it’s the free flow of expression that I like - the vibe. Sometimes the vibe attaches to the song in a particular way, but with the Livingstons it’s more dynamic energy and more instrumentation.”

“Recording in the studio with Andy the songs are more sculpted, but we didn’t do any overdubs,” she notes. “Originally I intended on asking Dave Kellan or Larry McCray or Jack Elliott to come in, but our time in the studio was limited because Andy is so busy, so when we went in the second time we had a good feel for the studio and what we were doing and it all came out live because I can’t to a click-track. Using one is offensive to my music.”

When asked about the progression and evolution of his Mom’s songwriting and how he would classify it, lead guitarist Sean Megoran says, “The first thing is that it’s pretty much totally original, so I always struggle to describe what kind of music it is that my Mom writes. She really has her own rhythm style and there are not many artists I can look at and say she’s like this or that because musically she is unique - she’s a very organic artist.”

“I played my first gig with her when I was 15-years old and she had just turned 40, recalls Sean, “and I grew up with guitars all around the house, but didn’t pick one up until a year or two before our first appearance together.  She was a player but hadn’t written any songs until the age of 40, so I think the progression of her songwriting is the strongest venue of growth I’ve seen.”

“The new songs she writes these days are purely creative and hilarious and so original,” he continues. “The songwriting is definitely what I’ve seen change most over the years. She’s an aggressive acoustic guitar player and treats her guitar like it’s a drum kit, which is not orthodox for most folk singers.”

“Working with her and recording her original songs in Andy Reed’s studio was the perfect environment,” he concludes. “I remember Andy working at the music store when I was a younger kid and it felt like recording with somebody that understood our dynamics and the fact we were coming into the studio with a goal being to create a family jewel.”

“Andy understood our family dynamic. The end result sounds fantastic, and the interesting thing is when I listen to these recorded tracks I now go, ‘Okay - that’s how that song is supposed to sound, so I’ll be playing some of the leads more like I did in the studio because they really stuck.”

“I’m proud to be part of the project and happy to have such a wonderful inspiration in my life to keep me where I need to be going.”LEGACY can be purchased and found on Spotify, CD Baby, and all the streaming services.