Jennifer Kimball

Jennifer Kimball and Amherst College friend Jonatha Brooke began playing music together in the 1980s. They performed regularly during their college years. Their folk songs were marked by "witty wordplay and sumptuous pop harmonies," according to one music critic. They called themselves The Story. One critic wrote "Jennifer Kimball played the Art Garfunkel role in The Story" and contributed "high ethereal harmonies." In 1989, the duo played the coffeehouse folk circuit and radio which exemplified the "folk-rock singer-songwriter aesthetic," according to one account. One critic raved about the "exquisite arrangements and tricky, pitch-perfect harmonies by Ms. Brooke and her vocal partner, Jennifer Kimball," and added they "are the last word in elegant folk-pop refinement." The songs contemplate a woman's conflicting desires for love and achievement and the need to shake off the romantic myth of a male rescuer. Another critic discussed the contrast between the patter between songs and the songs themselves, noting the duo's "levity" between heavy songs about "God, church, death, female oppression, self-suppression, mothers and daughters." The duo were compared with artists such as Suzanne Vega and Indigo Girls. Another reviewer gave the duo mixed reviews: "intriguingly distorted harmonies and interesting turns of phrase" but some "attempts at cleverness overreached" and there was "a painfully obvious unrecorded song about dieting and a silly, albeit self-consciously so, stab at voguing a la Madonna." ==Solo albums==

Kimball and Brooke dissolved their musical partnership in 1994, while Kimball performed her songs in a variety of venues and continued to write music. In 1998, Kimball released the album Veering from the Wave. A Washington Post critic applauded the singing as "handsome" and the songwriting as excellent. In 2000, she was a featured performer at the Eli Whitney Folk Festival in New Haven. Her song "Meet Me in the Twilight" received radio airplay, including on San Francisco station KPFA. She's recorded with other artists including Wayfaring Strangers, Session Americana and Tony Trischka. Kimball's music has been described as "quirky and oh-so-urban suburban" and a "sultry roots singer" with the "aching breath of a mezzo." One critic wrote "her songs still ripple with eccentric surprise, sudden twists, and "A-ha!" moments." along with a revolving cast of collaborators that has included Catie Curtis, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O'Donovan. The group released an eponymous EP in 2014 and a full-length album of original, traditional and modern seasonal songs, Hark, in 2015, with contributions from Kris Delmhorst and Anais Mitchell. The group continues to perform annual holiday shows each December. The Boston Globe described them as "a veritable supergroup of some of the finest local singer-songwriters." == Personal ==

At the beginning of her career, Kimball also worked as a children's book designer for Little, Brown and she has also studied landscape design and ecology at Boston Architectural College. Kimball has performed to raise money for charitable organizations such as Massachusetts Families in Need and she supports the cause of helping women's shelters.{{cite news ==Discography==