(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., March 6, 1998) -- In the erstwhile folk-pop duo The Story, Jennifer Kimball played Art Garfunkel to Jonatha Brooke's Paul Simon. Brooke wrote the songs and had complete creative control of the group's output, while Kimball provided the pretty harmonies and the comic relief.

And just as that earlier pairing was doomed from the start, so was that of The Story. In 1994, at the height of the group's popularity, Kimball bailed out of what had become an untenable situation.

But unlike Garfunkel, who was never able to establish himself as a singer-songwriter in his own right, Kimball has quickly regrouped and to some people's surprise -- most notably her own -- she is on the verge of launching what promises to be a distinguished career as a solo singer- songwriter.

On May 5, Kimball -- who will be performing this Sunday, March 8, at 7 at the Clark Art Institute as part of the acoustic-music supergroup Wayfaring Strangers (see accompanying article) -- will release her debut solo album, "Veering From the Wave" (Imaginary Road/PolyGram). Judging from an advance listen to about half the tracks on the CD, the debut will introduce a folk-pop artist born fully-formed out of the creative womb, one with a distinctive sensibility, an uncanny ear for a catchy melody and a pop hook, and the same achingly gorgeous vocals familiar to fans of The Story.

"I feel so alive, so productive and creative and energetic," said Kimball in a recent phone interview from her Boston home. "I feel like a real artist now."

As Kimball explains, for her this is an entirely new and different feeling. For while it may have appeared from the outside that she was one-half of a creative duo, in fact she was pretty much a hired hand in The Story, and towards the end of its dozen-year existence, a terribly unhappy one.

"It was very uncomfortable to always have the assumption being made that I wrote half the songs and sang half the songs and I was half of The Story, when in fact I wasn't," said Kimball.

"I painted myself into a corner. I didn't write, and Jonatha was increasingly writing songs that were just for her, and if there were parts for me she wrote them to be exactly the way she wanted them. And they were beautiful parts -- I will always tip my hat to Jonatha musically, I think she's a brilliant songwriter -- but I had no creative place in it."

Toward the end, life in The Story became unbearable. "I didn't realize what kind of damage I was doing to myself," said Kimball. "I had absolutely no self-esteem, and hated who I was and what I was doing, which is a shame, because it was a beautiful thing and it was commercially successful and we were definitely on a roll. But I was just going absolutely insane."

To make matters worse, the other key relationship in her life was also unraveling. For years her marriage played second fiddle to life on the road with The Story. After she quit the group, a last-ditch attempt to salvage her remaining relationship failed, and she and her husband were divorced.

If Kimball found herself suddenly alone and, for a time, shrouded in despair, that didn't last long. The contemporary folk world proved to be a sort of support system for her. Her backup vocals were much in demand, and she lent support on albums and in concert to the likes of Patty Larkin, Carrie Newcomer, John Gorka, Catie Curtis and Lucy Kaplansky.

She also did something she hadn't done since college. She picked up her guitar and started writing, and discovered an amazing thing: she could do it. Kimball says she never saw herself as a singer-songwriter. "I thought I'd be on the periphery and continue to sing background vocals and make contributions to other peoples' projects," she said.

Her first song, "Ordinary Soldier," was one of her best, and was quickly snapped up and put on a compilation of Boston-based talent called "This Is Boston, Not Austin, Vol. 2" (Eastern Front). Most reviews of the CD singled out Kimball's song as the best thing on it.

In quick succession, she wrote another handful of songs, and with the aid of ex-Story drummer and producer Ben Wittman, Kimball recorded her own six-song demo. Before she was barely ready, she was getting calls to perform on the same folk circuit she came up through with The Story, and within a year, she had her own record deal.

Many of the songs on "Veering From the Wave" are dark and melancholy. "There's definitely a lot of dark stuff going on, both specifically because I really have had some difficult things that I've been going through, but also because I think in general that I'm drawn towards storms and black clouds and away from the sun."

At the end of the storm, however, the clouds break up and the sun comes out, in the form of her beautiful melodies and vocals and in the Beatlesque and Motown-like pop touches that pepper and enliven her compositions, which rank with the best of the contemporary, Lilith Fair- style folk-pop.

Undoubtedly, many will read Kimball's songs for clues to her former relationships with Brooke and her husband. "I've been feeling an enormous amount of loss and pain, but I've been trying to write songs that are not specifically about any particular lover or relationship," she said.

"If people want to say that this one's about my ex-husband or that one's about Jonatha, fine. They can say that. There's a lot of truth and a lot of fiction in every song."

[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on March 6, 1998. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1998. All rights reserved.]

Related Sites
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Eastern Front Records Home Page
Exhibitions and Events at the Clark Art Institute
Official Jonatha Brooke Website