The accomplishments that led her there are many. Her clients have won numerous competitions and topped print and online music charts. She has done custom projects for special events and festivals as well as promotional work for a major motion picture. Her production work for artists like Nashville Star finalist Rachel Williams, Keith Norris and Barbara Harley, have drawn critical raves and attracted some of the top names in Nashville songwriting and some of its best studio musicians.

Her reputation as a gifted song troubleshooter has made her one of the most sought-after speakers, consultants and songwriting instructors in the country for organizations including TAXI, The Songwriters Connection and the Nashville Songwriters Association International. Her own songs have been recorded by artists in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and she has released two albums of her own. Her education and background as a vocalist have helped her become one of the city's most respected vocal arrangers.

Along the way, she has helped countless young artists get their first real step up in the music business, with many landing publishing and recording deals after working with her.

"I love helping songwriters and artists find their voice and their audience," she says. Rachel Williams, a rising star who has opened for Wynonna, Trace Adkins and Jason Aldean and for whom Kim acted as manager as well as producer, is a prime example. Kim has been instrumental in her development, helping to groom her as a songwriter and pairing her with some of Music Row's most accomplished tunesmiths. No less than Music Row magazine said Williams' recorded work "should stand proudly beside anything coming out of Nashville this year."

"Not only does she create quality music," says Williams, "but she also takes the time to nurture the song. Kim helped me discover my sound and she still challenges me to be better. I couldn't have asked for a better teacher."

It's an accolade Kim especially treasures.

"I'm a teacher at heart," she says, not surprising for someone with a major in voice and a minor in education. "I like clients involved in every aspect of the recording, singing scratch vocals, helping with the arrangement, so that they emerge from the studio with better career tools."

Kim is extremely hands-on with song selection, song mapping, vocal coaching and arranging, and she is particularly adept at the fine art of turning an artist's vision into on-target instructions for musicians. Known both for her top-level studio skills and her personal warmth, she is the perfect conduit between song and performance, melody and arrangement, raw idea and finished master. She is one of those rare people who operate best at that place where musical and studio knowledge meet art and emotion.

"I get the greatest pleasure in taking songs in their raw form and using those techniques to get the best presentation. My job is to interpret the song and create a work of art that moves the listener and teaching the artist to tap into the unique gifts they have in a way that's going to move people."

The success she's had with that approach and the esteem in which she's held are personified by the Parsons project.

"I can't tell you how honored I was to be part of that group of industry pros," she says. Parsons, who began his career as a recording engineering for The Beatles, The Hollies and Pink Floyd, brought together a Who's Who of presenters. They are drawn from the ranks of artists, producers and engineers, including artists like Michael McDonald and Hal Ketchum, musicians like Carol Kaye (Quincy Jones) and Nathan East (Michael Jackson), producers like Tony Brown (George Strait), and John Shanks (Sheryl Crow), and engineers like Niko Bolas (Neil Young) and Steve Marcantonio (Rascal Flatts, Keith Urban).

Kim's love of music and her talent were evident from her earliest years in Houston. "My mother remembers me walking around the house singing what I had to say instead of talking," she says with a laugh.

From her father, she picked up a love of country greats like Hank Sr., Patsy Cline, Eddy Arnold and Johnny Cash, and from her mother, pop, R&B and soul greats including Aretha Franklin, Sam Cook and Johnny Mathis. Her mother's recordings of vocal groups became an early training ground. "Every time the chorus of a song came by, I would sing a different part," she says. She studied song structure, vocal parts and instrumental arrangements on everything she heard on record and on TV.

At 12, she saved baby-sitting money to buy a $65 guitar, then took a handful of lessons, although she is largely a self-taught musician. She nurtured her obvious vocal talents in junior high and high school choirs, becoming part of her high school's elite touring choir and earning all-district and all-state honors. She went to Stephen F. Austin State University as a vocal major, so she is classically trained, but what she learned outside of school was just as crucial to her development. She was part of a folk duo and wrote and performed Christian and pop music before forming a five-piece band that went on to win the Marlboro Country Showdown.

She played the Texas dance hall circuit, spending four or five nights a week in places like Gilley's and Dancetown USA, but she knew she wanted to take the next step.

"I drove the 15 hours from Houston to Nashville three or four times a year to write songs and knock on doors," she says. On one of those trips a music executive told her, 'You've done all you can do long distance,' and Kim packed her bags and moved.

She took a day job at Vanderbilt University and set about learning the songwriting and recording part of the business. "I love the studio even more than the stage," she says. "I had done everything I could on the honky-tonk scene, and I came to Nashville to apply my gift, my passion, to the business of music."

She wrote songs, recorded home demos and played writers' nights, including those at the famed Bluebird Cafe. In fact, reluctant to get too comfortable with her day job, she quit hours before a Bluebird gig. She looked over the obviously empathetic crowd that night and said, "Wish me luck. I just quit my day gig."

"I got a standing ovation for that, before I ever played a note," she says with a laugh.

That was when she met Kim Williams and others who shared both information and support. A writer she met doing song critiques for NSAI loved her input and asked her to help put together an album, and from there she paid her dues on projects of all description.

"I don't like to be locked into a single style," she says, and she has brought her touch to styles ranging from bluegrass to pop, from R&B to Texas roots music. She has done everything from songwriter demos to pitch packages to finished masters for radio.

"I love the freedom I have as an independent producer," she says. " I can use small mixing rooms, large or small studios. I don't spend clients money on bells and whistles we don't need, but I'll have exactly what I want for each project. It's a pretty cool toy box we live in here."

Her long association with the cream of the Nashville music business has given her access to the city's best musicians, engineers and studios, and her projects continually draw accolades. A visible part of the Nashville scene, she continues to take part in writers' nights at local spots like the legendary Bluebird Cafe, and as part of showcases in other cities.

As her own profile continues to rise, she is adamant about giving back. She has her own series of instructional videos, she writes a weekly article for Songwriters Connection and other publications, and she is working to insure the future of the next generation of songwriters by volunteering her mentoring talents to the Country Music Foundation's Words and Music Program, which teams schoolchildren with working songwriters. She is an active member of NARAS, ASCAP, and NSAI.

As she looks over her journey and her wide-ranging interests and skills, she goes back to the unexpected route she took to her career as a producer.

"I took a back door into production," she says, "but it feels like I belong, because it allows me to use all of my gifts."

And in using her own gifts, she has built a truly impressive career maximizing and presenting the gifts of others.

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