Puyallup singer/songwriter poised for the big stage

photo by Jennifer Wohrle

SECOND EFFORT. Singer/songwriter Kristin Connell just released her second album, “Dance of Love.”

Kristin Connell’s first foray into music was short-lived. In second grade, she talked her mother into letting her take piano lessons. After six months she stopped, preferring to spend her time out of the house playing baseball.

“I wanted to go outside and play,” the Puyallup resident said with a laugh.

Connell, who grew up in Parkland, began playing guitar when she was 12. This time around music got a stronger hold on her interest. She eventually began writing songs. Her material has elements of pop, folk and country, wrapped up in an Americana blanket.

Artists who have inspired her include Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Lyle Lovett and Lucinda Williams. She began listening to some country in the 1990s, when Garth Brooks drastically broadened the genre’s audience.

Connell released her debut album, “Second Chances,” in 2005. She began performing live, sometimes by herself and other times as a duo with Ryan Shea Smith on piano.

She spent 18 months working on her second album, “Dance of Love,” which was released this month.

A limited budget meant recording was done off and on as funding permitted. She co-produced the album with Chris Henning, who handled the engineering and mixing.

“It was a long time coming, but it turned out well,” Connell remarked.

Connell has been to a number of songwriter conferences. She does some writing with musicians from Los Angeles and Colorado whom she met through conferences.

“It is fun to connect with other writers chasing the same thing I am.”

She met Tim McHugh at a conference in Utah in 2007. Soon after they began collaborating on material.

“We built a friendship,” she said. “Writing with him was a real good match.”

McHugh wrote four songs on “Dance of Love” and co-wrote three others with Connell. She wrote the remaining five. He contributed piano and harmonica playing on the album.

Connell’s songwriting can sometimes be a drawn-out process. “I am a slow writer,” she said. She considers some songs as gifts, when inspiration strikes and she writes a song quickly.

One of these is “The Well.” A mother of two boys, ages 5 and 6, Connell wrote the song about the older boy heading off to kindergarten. The lyrics address mothers sending their sons off to war, her way of adding a socially conscious element to her feelings as a mom no longer having her boy with her at all times.

“‘Til The Wheels Fall Off,” which Connell wrote with McHugh, came about when he was watching an interview with actor Will Smith on television. The interviewer asked Smith about his co-star in the “Men in Black” movies, Tommy Lee Jones. Smith made a comment that he would work with Jones “until the wheels fall off.” McHugh was inspired to write a tune after hearing the phrase.

“You take your inspiration wherever you can find it,” Connell observed.

Connell was at Durango Songwriters Expo in Colorado earlier this month. She had people listen to songs on the new CD and got some face time with publishers. Next on the agenda is to send the CD off to radio stations and line up some gigs. With no record label or management, Connell handles her own promotion and booking.

When not busy with music or spending time with her husband and children, Connell works two days a week at her parents’ trucking company.

It remains to be seen where the release of the new album will take Connell’s musical career. Regardless, she will stay focused on her creative process. “I want to keep working on the craft of songwriting.”

For more information on the artist, visit http://www.kristinconnell.com.

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