Meg Hutchinson
Encyclopedia
Meg Hutchinson is an American folk
singer songwriter known for distinct alto vocals, poet
ic lyrics
, and sophisticated songwriting
. Originally from rural western-most Massachusetts, Hutchinson is now based in the Boston
area. Influences include poet Mary Oliver
, songwriter Shawn Colvin
, and mood maker David Gray
. She has won numerous songwriting awards in the US, Ireland and UK, including recognition from John Lennon Songwriting Contest
, Billboard
Song Contest and prestigious competitions at Merlefest
, NewSong, Kerrville, Falcon Ridge
, Telluride Bluegrass
and Rocky Mountain Folks festivals.
"a master of introspective ballads" -Performing Songwriter Magazine
"a folkster made of sterner stuff" -The Philadelphia Inquirer
"elegant and free-floating melodies that sound both modern and rooted" -The Boston Globe
"music as powerful as it is gentle" -No Depression
called South Egremont
. Growing up in the Berkshires, the mountains, woods and ponds were her childhood muses, as were poets she read (like Mary Oliver
, Robert Frost
and William Butler Yeats
), and the songwriters she listened to (like Greg Brown and Joni Mitchell
). When she inherited her grandmother’s 1957 Martin guitar
at age eleven, her love of words found an inspiring instrument, and there was no turning back. “Songwriting is not something I chose, I’ve just somehow always known that this is what I love to do. This is what I can’t help but do,” she says.
After graduating from Bard College
at Simon's Rock, with a BA in Liberal Arts with concentration in Creative Writing
, Hutchinson quit her longtime job on an organic lettuce farm
and settled in Boston, Massachusetts. In between gigs at pubs, coffeehouses and subway train stations, she won a Kerrville New Folk Award
(2000) and was nominated for a Boston Music Award for her first studio album "Against the Grey." She went on to win awards at the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest, the Telluride Troubadour Songwriter’s Showcase in Colorado and The Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at Merlefest
in North Carolina, all in the course of a year, causing national publications like Performing Songwriter to take notice, calling her “A master of introspective ballads filled with understated yearning and an exquisite sense of metaphor.”
After recording her live CD "Any Given Day" in 2001, and continuing to build a fan base throughout the Northeast, she went into the studio with esteemed producer Crit Harmon (Lori McKenna
, Martin Sexton
, Mary Gauthier
) to record "The Crossing." Released in 2004, this album was enthusiastically received by critics and DJs across the country, catching the attention of renowned folk/roots label Red House Records
. Label president and veteran producer Eric Peltoniemi knew there was something special in the young singer-songwriter, “Meg won me over with the profound yet easy depth of her lyrics—rich words married to melodies I just can’t get out of my head.” Knowing her songs could stand alongside those by Red House heavyweights Greg Brown, Eliza Gilkyson
and John Gorka
, Peltoniemi signed Hutchinson to the label.
. A lyrically rich record about encountering good things when you least expect them, Hutchinson's introduction to the Folk community was well-received within the genre and was instrumental to Hutchinson's growth from being a regional New England songwriter to an internationally-touring recording artist. In songs like “Ready,” “Home” and “Come Up Full” she sings about our universal ability to overcome life’s most trying times. With a poet’s sensibility, Hutchinson’s songs are laced with a weathered but unselfconscious optimism, a love of language and of the natural world. An honest writer, Hutchinson does not shy away from the hard topics. In “America (Enough),” Hutchinson explores American culture, excess and war by writing about how things taken to an extreme almost become their opposite. Another timely song on the new album is her “Song for Jeffrey Lucey,” based on the real story of Lance Corporal Jeffrey Lucey, who returned from Iraq, suffering from severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Whether tackling political issues or matters of the heart, Hutchinson writes about human resilience. Produced by Crit Harmon (Lori McKenna, Martin Sexton, Mary Gauthier).
, master songwriter John Gorka
said, “After you hear Meg, you feel you’ve been somewhere.”
The album is material of the times - Hutchinson's answer to the American cultural search for meaning and connection in the midst of bank bailouts, work-aholism and global warming. The songs begin with vivid, naturalistic images of apple orchards and trailer parks, stark factory towns and the Statue of Liberty. But the songs intend to guide listeners to more intimate places, exploring how we feel in a time of fast and frightening change. The album begins with “Hard to Change,” a song about Americans' struggle to unplug from high-tech gadgets and more fully connect with each other.
“I grew up in the country without a TV or internet," Hutchinson says. “There were so many quiet hours in the day. So many spaces between events. We have forgotten how to be alone in our thoughts. All the best work comes out of that rich stillness of waiting."
(with Antje Duvekot
, Anne Heaton
, and Natalia Zukerman
)
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
singer songwriter known for distinct alto vocals, poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
ic lyrics
Lyricist
A lyricist is a songwriter who specializes in lyrics. A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist. This differentiates from a singer-composer, who composes the song's melody.-Collaboration:...
, and sophisticated songwriting
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
. Originally from rural western-most Massachusetts, Hutchinson is now based in the Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
area. Influences include poet Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver is an American poet who has won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The New York Times described her as "far and away, this country's [America's] best-selling poet".-Early life:...
, songwriter Shawn Colvin
Shawn Colvin
Shawn Colvin is an American singer-songwriter and musician.-Childhood and early career:Colvin was born in Vermillion, South Dakota. Her formative years were spent in the town of Carbondale, Illinois, where she attended Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She learned to play guitar at the age...
, and mood maker David Gray
David Gray
David Gray may refer to:*David Gray , Scottish poet*David Gray , English singer-songwriter*David Gray , Scottish footballer*David Gray , Scottish footballer...
. She has won numerous songwriting awards in the US, Ireland and UK, including recognition from John Lennon Songwriting Contest
John Lennon Songwriting Contest
The John Lennon Songwriting Contest, named for the former member of The Beatles, is a songwriting competition for songwriters, open to amateurs and professionals. The contest accepts instrumental pieces as well as songs with a vocal component. Though all entries must include a CD, cassette, or...
, Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Song Contest and prestigious competitions at Merlefest
MerleFest
MerleFest is an annual "traditional plus" music festival held in Wilkesboro, North Carolina on the campus of Wilkes Community College . The festival, which is held the last weekend in April, is hosted by Grammy Award winner Doc Watson and is named in memory and honor of his son, Eddy Merle Watson,...
, NewSong, Kerrville, Falcon Ridge
Falcon Ridge Folk Festival
The Falcon Ridge Folk Festival is an American annual folk-oriented music festival and dance festival formerly held at the Long Hill Farm in Hillsdale, New York, USA. In 2006, the event moved to nearby Dodds Farm, just off Rt. 22, five miles north of the Rt. 22/Rt. 23 intersection in Hillsdale, on...
, Telluride Bluegrass
Telluride Bluegrass Festival
Telluride Bluegrass Festival is held annually in Telluride, Colorado by . Although traditionally the festival focuses on bluegrass music, it often features music from a variety of genres. In 1974, its first year, it attracted 1000 participants. Currently the festival's attendance is capped at 10,000...
and Rocky Mountain Folks festivals.
"a master of introspective ballads" -Performing Songwriter Magazine
"a folkster made of sterner stuff" -The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
"elegant and free-floating melodies that sound both modern and rooted" -The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
"music as powerful as it is gentle" -No Depression
No Depression
No Depression may refer to:* No Depression , a bi-monthly roots and Americana music magazine and now a music website.* "No Depression in Heaven", a 1936 song popularized by the Carter Family...
Biography
Meg Hutchinson was raised by English teachers in a small town outside of Great Barrington, MassachusettsGreat Barrington, Massachusetts
Great Barrington is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,104 at the 2010 census. Both a summer resort and home to Ski Butternut, Great Barrington includes the villages of Van...
called South Egremont
Egremont
Egremont may refer to:Places* Egremont, Cumbria, England* Egremont, Merseyside, England* Egremont, Massachusetts, United States of AmericaOther* Earl of Egremont...
. Growing up in the Berkshires, the mountains, woods and ponds were her childhood muses, as were poets she read (like Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver is an American poet who has won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The New York Times described her as "far and away, this country's [America's] best-selling poet".-Early life:...
, Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
and William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
), and the songwriters she listened to (like Greg Brown and Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
). When she inherited her grandmother’s 1957 Martin guitar
C. F. Martin & Company
C.F. Martin & Company is a US guitar manufacturer established in 1833 by Christian Frederick Martin. Martin is highly regarded for its steel-string guitars, and is a leading mass manufacturer of flattop acoustics with models that retail for thousands of dollars and vintage instruments that often...
at age eleven, her love of words found an inspiring instrument, and there was no turning back. “Songwriting is not something I chose, I’ve just somehow always known that this is what I love to do. This is what I can’t help but do,” she says.
After graduating from Bard College
Bard College
Bard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...
at Simon's Rock, with a BA in Liberal Arts with concentration in Creative Writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
, Hutchinson quit her longtime job on an organic lettuce farm
Organic farming
Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm...
and settled in Boston, Massachusetts. In between gigs at pubs, coffeehouses and subway train stations, she won a Kerrville New Folk Award
Kerrville Folk Festival
The Kerrville Folk Festival is a music festival held for 18 consecutive days in the late spring/early summer at Quiet Valley Ranch near Kerrville, Texas. The event has run on a yearly basis since 1972. In November 2008, the Kerrville Folk Festival and Kerrville Wine & Music Festival were acquired...
(2000) and was nominated for a Boston Music Award for her first studio album "Against the Grey." She went on to win awards at the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest, the Telluride Troubadour Songwriter’s Showcase in Colorado and The Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at Merlefest
MerleFest
MerleFest is an annual "traditional plus" music festival held in Wilkesboro, North Carolina on the campus of Wilkes Community College . The festival, which is held the last weekend in April, is hosted by Grammy Award winner Doc Watson and is named in memory and honor of his son, Eddy Merle Watson,...
in North Carolina, all in the course of a year, causing national publications like Performing Songwriter to take notice, calling her “A master of introspective ballads filled with understated yearning and an exquisite sense of metaphor.”
After recording her live CD "Any Given Day" in 2001, and continuing to build a fan base throughout the Northeast, she went into the studio with esteemed producer Crit Harmon (Lori McKenna
Lori McKenna
Lori McKenna is an American folk singer/songwriter. She lives in Stoughton, Massachusetts with her husband and five children.-Early work:...
, Martin Sexton
Martin Sexton
Martin Sexton is an American singer-songwriter and producer originally from Syracuse, New York.- Early life :Sexton grew up the tenth of twelve children in a working class Irish-American family. He acquired his first guitar, a Sears & Roebuck acoustic, at the age of 14 and later played in local...
, Mary Gauthier
Mary Gauthier
Mary Gauthier is an American folk singer-songwriter.-Life and career:Gauthier was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. Given up at birth by a mother she never knew, Gauthier was adopted by an Italian Catholic couple in Thibodaux, Louisiana...
) to record "The Crossing." Released in 2004, this album was enthusiastically received by critics and DJs across the country, catching the attention of renowned folk/roots label Red House Records
Red House Records
Red House Records is an American independent record label specializing in folk music and is based in St. Paul, Minnesota.The label was originally created in 1981 by Greg Brown as a method to distribute his own music, and is named for a farmhouse in Iowa where he was living...
. Label president and veteran producer Eric Peltoniemi knew there was something special in the young singer-songwriter, “Meg won me over with the profound yet easy depth of her lyrics—rich words married to melodies I just can’t get out of my head.” Knowing her songs could stand alongside those by Red House heavyweights Greg Brown, Eliza Gilkyson
Eliza Gilkyson
Eliza Gilkyson is an Austin, Texas-based folk musician. She is the daughter of songwriter and folk musician Terry Gilkyson and Jane Gilkyson. She is the sister of guitarist Tony Gilkyson, who played with the Los Angeles-based bands Lone Justice and X...
and John Gorka
John Gorka
John Gorka is a contemporary American folk musician. In 1991, Rolling Stone magazine called him "the preeminent male singer-songwriter of what has been dubbed the New Folk Movement."-Biography:...
, Peltoniemi signed Hutchinson to the label.
2008 Album "Come Up Full"
"Come Up Full" was Hutchinson's first release on reputable Folk label Red House RecordsRed House Records
Red House Records is an American independent record label specializing in folk music and is based in St. Paul, Minnesota.The label was originally created in 1981 by Greg Brown as a method to distribute his own music, and is named for a farmhouse in Iowa where he was living...
. A lyrically rich record about encountering good things when you least expect them, Hutchinson's introduction to the Folk community was well-received within the genre and was instrumental to Hutchinson's growth from being a regional New England songwriter to an internationally-touring recording artist. In songs like “Ready,” “Home” and “Come Up Full” she sings about our universal ability to overcome life’s most trying times. With a poet’s sensibility, Hutchinson’s songs are laced with a weathered but unselfconscious optimism, a love of language and of the natural world. An honest writer, Hutchinson does not shy away from the hard topics. In “America (Enough),” Hutchinson explores American culture, excess and war by writing about how things taken to an extreme almost become their opposite. Another timely song on the new album is her “Song for Jeffrey Lucey,” based on the real story of Lance Corporal Jeffrey Lucey, who returned from Iraq, suffering from severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Whether tackling political issues or matters of the heart, Hutchinson writes about human resilience. Produced by Crit Harmon (Lori McKenna, Martin Sexton, Mary Gauthier).
2010 Album "The Living Side"
Upon the release of "The Living Side," Hutchinson's second album on Red House RecordsRed House Records
Red House Records is an American independent record label specializing in folk music and is based in St. Paul, Minnesota.The label was originally created in 1981 by Greg Brown as a method to distribute his own music, and is named for a farmhouse in Iowa where he was living...
, master songwriter John Gorka
John Gorka
John Gorka is a contemporary American folk musician. In 1991, Rolling Stone magazine called him "the preeminent male singer-songwriter of what has been dubbed the New Folk Movement."-Biography:...
said, “After you hear Meg, you feel you’ve been somewhere.”
The album is material of the times - Hutchinson's answer to the American cultural search for meaning and connection in the midst of bank bailouts, work-aholism and global warming. The songs begin with vivid, naturalistic images of apple orchards and trailer parks, stark factory towns and the Statue of Liberty. But the songs intend to guide listeners to more intimate places, exploring how we feel in a time of fast and frightening change. The album begins with “Hard to Change,” a song about Americans' struggle to unplug from high-tech gadgets and more fully connect with each other.
“I grew up in the country without a TV or internet," Hutchinson says. “There were so many quiet hours in the day. So many spaces between events. We have forgotten how to be alone in our thoughts. All the best work comes out of that rich stillness of waiting."
Solo Albums - Charts (peak)
| Year | Album | Radio Charts | Sales Charts | Song notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Folk | Roots | Billboard | Amazon | iTunes | |||
| 2010 | The Living Side (after 2 weeks, still climbing) | 27 | 15 | 32 | 9 | 8 | "Hard To Change" reached #2 on Folk radio |
| 2008 | Come Up Full | 10 | 11 | - | 18 | 24 | "Home" reached #6 on Folk radio |
| 2004 | The Crossing | - | - | - | - | - | While this album did not chart, it was the first serviced to radio stations in New England primarily, received heavy airplay from WERS Boston. |
| 2001 | Any Given Day (Live) (remastered in 2009) | - | - | - | - | - | While this album did not chart, "True North" was the song that introduced Hutchinson's music to the Folk community at festival competitions. |
| 1999 | Against The Grey | - | - | - | - | - | |
| 1996 | Meg Hutchinson | - | - | - | - | - |
Collaborative Albums
- Winterbloom: Traditions Rearranged (2009)
(with Antje Duvekot
Antje Duvekot
Antje Duvekot is a singer-songwriter and guitarist based in Somerville, Massachusetts. holds three top songwriting awards, including the Kerrville New Folk Competition's Best New Folk Award, Boston Music Award for Outstanding Folk Act and Grand Prize in the John Lennon Songwriting...
, Anne Heaton
Anne Heaton
Anne Heaton is an American pop-influenced folk singer/songwriter and pianist from New York City. She majored in liberal studies at the Notre Dame, and grew up in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette. She regularly toured with "Live from New York" on the eastern coast of the United States...
, and Natalia Zukerman
Natalia Zukerman
Natalia Zukerman is an American artist and musician raised in Manhattan, New York. She is the daughter of violist/conductor Pinchas Zukerman and flutist/writer Eugenia Zukerman, and the sister of opera singer Arianna Zukerman...
)