Biography
Among Canada’s folk performers, Kim Barlow ranks among the most inventive. She incorporates standard North American tools such as clawhammer banjo and fingerpicking guitar yet repeatedly startles listeners by assigning her favored instrument, the cello, to strikingly unorthodox roles. Classical training, a steady flow of fresh ideas, a singular voice, and lyrics that reward close attention allow her to stretch the definition of folk music well beyond familiar limits.
Born on Nova Scotia’s south coast, Barlow settled in Florida in 1987 and enrolled in classical guitar studies at Florida State University. Four years later she completed the degree and moved to Whitehorse in the Yukon, the northern territory that shares a border with Alaska. There she took part in sustainable forestry, coffee roasting, and horse logging while refusing to set music aside. Prolonged winter darkness at that latitude sparked her songwriting, leading her to compose her earliest pieces and test new instrumental combinations; the cello that anchors her work came from a yard sale.
In summer 1999 she issued her first album, Humminah. The striking debut from a part-time musician quickly earned her recognition as a non-conformist folk singer shaped by a landscape of extremes.
Born on Nova Scotia’s south coast, Barlow settled in Florida in 1987 and enrolled in classical guitar studies at Florida State University. Four years later she completed the degree and moved to Whitehorse in the Yukon, the northern territory that shares a border with Alaska. There she took part in sustainable forestry, coffee roasting, and horse logging while refusing to set music aside. Prolonged winter darkness at that latitude sparked her songwriting, leading her to compose her earliest pieces and test new instrumental combinations; the cello that anchors her work came from a yard sale.
In summer 1999 she issued her first album, Humminah. The striking debut from a part-time musician quickly earned her recognition as a non-conformist folk singer shaped by a landscape of extremes.
Albums
