Kimmie Rhodes
| Kimmie Rhodes | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Kimmie Ray Willingham |
| Born |
March 6, 1954 Wichita Falls, Texas, United States |
| Genres | Americana Country, Pop, Folk, Rock, Gospel |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, singer-songwriter, playwright, actress, author, producer, florist, painter |
| Instruments | guitar, vocals |
| Years active | 1960 - present |
| Labels | Heartland, Justice, New Rose, New West, Last Call, Jackalope, Sunbird |
Kimmie Rhodes (born March 6, 1954) is a singer-songwriter who has written multi-platinum selling songs. Among the artists who have recorded her songs are Willie Nelson,Wynonna Judd,Trisha Yearwood,Amy Grant, CeCe Winans,Joe Ely,John Farnham, Waylon Jennings,Peter Frampton,Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris. She has recorded and released a total of fifteen solo CDs, written and produced three musicals and published a novella/cookbook, served as an associate producer for a documentary, They Called Us Outlaws presented by the Country Music Hall Of Fame and produces radio documentary/music programming for her show Radio Dreams, which focuses on the history of American roots music and artists. She has also appeared in multiple films and a theatre production, Is There Life After Lubbock? Her songs have appeared on multiple television and film soundtracks. She has established and released her own records on her label, Sunbird Music for over 25 years. Kimmie's promotional tours created a solid fan base in the U.K., Ireland and Europe. She has headlined with her band at festivals throughout the world and has appeared on many European and American TV and radio broadcasts and at Willie Nelson's Farm Aid concerts and July 4 Picnics. Together with Willie Nelson she recorded two of her originals for his album Just One Love and a duet CD, "Picture in a Frame". She lives and records in Austin and tours internationally with her son and producer/multi-instrumentalist, Gabriel Rhodes.
Kimmie Ray Willingham was born to father, Ray Junior Willingham Jr. and mother Bettie Lee Grbavace on March 6, 1954 in Wichita Falls Texas. She had one sibling, Michael Lee Willingham, who died in 2013. Rhodes' family moved from Wichita Falls, Texas when she was five years old and settled in Lubbock, Texas where she began her singing career at the age of six. Her father, Ray Junior Willingham Jr., having been orphaned at the age of seven years, during the Great Depression, taught her to sing as a child so she would "have a skill" should the same fate befall her. He took her with him on his rounds, working as a car dealer/gambler and encouraged her to sing for dimes. The first songs she learned, the hymn "Old Rugged Cross" and the nursery hymn "Row Row Row Your Boat" began what would become a lifelong repertoire of songs. She performed at churches, nursing homes and school functions fronting a gospel trio, backed by her father and brother and "whatever pianist was available to accompany the act." She says her only aspiration at the time was to become a florist because she was in her own mind "already a professional singer." She learned to read music, singing in school and church choirs where she was placed between the altos and sopranos sections because she had a developed vocal range and an inherent ability to sing harmony passed on by a babysitter with a strong alto voice who took her to church and taught her the harmony part "as if it were the melody line." She married, left Lubbock and moved to a family farm in Sunset, Texas, where she raised two sons, Jeremie and Gabriel Rhodes while operating an independent greenhouse business and working as a florist. During this time her husband, Michael Rhodes, operated a family produce farm which she says, "Unfortunately began in what would become the first year of a seven year drought and went bankrupt on the seventh year and that it was "God's way of telling me I wasn't supposed to be a professional squash picker." It was during this time she began to write poems that would later become her first songs and to learn to play guitar, taking lessons and studying music theory.
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