Singer-songwriter Kansas-Lee Hatherly is performing songs from her new piano-based album at Jojo’s Cafe on Jan. 26. She said the theme to the album is one of letting go and writing the songs for it was cathartic. (Michele Weisz photo)
By Michele Weisz
Osoyoos Times
Local musician Kansas-Lee Hatherly doesn’t like to say what genre of music she performs but is most comfortable with it being described as folk.
To her, folk is “not an actual sound” so much as songwriting that comes from the heart allowing audiences to view a piece of the performer in the stories they tell.
Hatherly, who goes by Kansas-Lee, has recorded a new and yet to be titled album of piano-based songs, which she’s releasing at Jojo’s Café next Saturday.
Hatherly is young with an easy and pleasant smile but when she sings her voice is big and conveys emotion that makes her seem older than her years. She plays the piano and guitar but doesn’t read music, writing instead, from remembering melodies in her head.
She is an unusual performer in that she doesn’t want to draw attention to herself. She eschews singing contests because she is not looking for fame and doesn’t want others to dictate the type of music she produces, but said that when she reaches the ripe age of 30 she might consider it if she feels that she hasn’t achieved what she wants to with her music. But it would be a last resort.
“I love playing for people and I want to do that because I love that connection of playing music for people and them receiving it and feeling something … but I don’t like the whole self-promotion thing,” she said.
Hatherly’s mother is also a musician who spent 30 years performing and her father did lighting at large concert venues. Music is ingrained in her.
When she was younger, like many teenagers, Hatherly had thoughts of going to L.A., getting a recording contract and becoming famous, but now it’s about honing her craft more than it is about fame.
“Life happens and experiences happen, and your art becomes so much more to you and it’s so much more to me than making money off of it,” she said.
She said that in the past she was not in the right frame of mind to share herself with audiences but now she feels ready and that her life experiences have made both her and her music stronger.
Hatherly moved to Osoyoos at the age of 12. After graduating from high school she travelled to California for a few winters to play music there.
Eventually, she ended up living in Victoria. It was during her three-year stint there, she said, that everything changed for her music-wise.
She busked at the harbour and met a group of “brilliant” musicians and credits them with inspiring her work to become more organic. Although she learned a lot and wrote a lot of music there, she said the atmosphere was not a healthy one and although her friends were inspiring in their dedication to their craft, she was already in a “low spot” and her tendency to absorb others’ negativity was impacting her.
Hatherly likens being a busker, performing well-known crowd-pleasers, to being a circus performer. She said she went home afterwards craving silence and wanting to sit at her piano and just breathe.
She said that rather than entertaining people, she wanted to write and to make music that “wants to be made” without worrying about whether people will like it or not.
“I like playing my own stuff and if people liked me more if I played a bunch of hits, I don’t care,” she said.
After not finding any people in Victoria she considered “uplifting,” Hatherly decided to come home to the comfort of her family to “work on getting better and writing and getting my stuff together.”
The plan was to stay for a few months but because of friends, the nanny job that she loves and boyfriend Simon Drolet, owner of Art Therapy Corporation, she never left.
Hatherly said that Drolet is “so supportive” of her and her music. He brought a piano into his home for her and hung a USB mic above it to help her record her album. She said it’s nice to be around someone so encouraging.
Each of the songs on Hatherly’s album is deeply personal. Although she didn’t think of them as being part of an overall theme, many, like “Shaken,” which states “shaken in my bones, but I’m not sorry for being myself anymore,” are about “reconciling; self- acceptance through learning from other people.”
The recently-completed song “Australia” is stirring and reads like a love letter to her good friend who has been living there for over a year: “I’m sitting in my kitchen, finishing a song I wrote for you … It’s hard to leave the past behind but you told me what we seek we almost always find.”
It’s sincere lyrics like that which Hatherly said would never have been written had she entered those contests or been signed to a record label.
Hatherly performs with an honesty that the audience can see and hear and that is very important to her. She appreciates small, intimate venues where she can make a connection with her audience, and Jojo’s Café, where she’ll be performing on Jan. 26 at 7 p.m. is just that.
Hatherly will be performing pieces from her new album, and Drolet’s artwork will be on display. The show is free of charge.
