Kelly Hunt may never have lived in the Ozarks, but the Memphis native named her latest album Ozark Symphony after the mountain corridors she often travelled through to Kansas City.
The song is almost a ghost story, though no one in it is dead. Instead her love seems to haunt the mountains where the object of her affection was from. She claims to have taught the song to the trees and mountains and wind so they could pass it on. Profound longing, changing locations, and emotions displayed for the world to see are all major themes of the album.
“I’m a creature of longing by nature,” Hunt explained. “I’ve always been a very nostalgic kind of person. I grew up in Memphis. I lived there until I was 18. I’ve not moved back, and I don’t want to move back because I actually like missing it and coming back to it and feeling that homecoming.”
Another track, “Everybody Knows,” addresses her tendency to declare what she’s feeling to the world. She’s basically chosen to explain herself through song as a career.
“It’s such a therapeutic thing,” said Hunt. “It feels like a constructive use of something that is painful or hard. If I didn’t have that, I don’t know what I’d do without that. But also, I think it’s a privilege to be able to enter people’s lives that way and maybe help them navigate the emotions that we all share.”
She does admit that there’s a downside to regularly telling her story.
“Part of the cost of the job is that you have to tap back into those places,” Hunt said. “You have to keep the wound open to a degree.”
In addition to singing from the heart, Hunt also sang from the perspective of the heart on standout track “My Own Civil War.” Based on a famous letter by Thomas Jefferson, the lyrics use universal themes and are delivered so sincerely that they feel as autobiographical as the rest of the album.
“I want to understand things, I have a curiosity about things, but also I’m a deeply feeling person,” Hunt said. “I feel like I’m often at odds with myself.”
The image of the brain locking the heart in a cage is both powerful and biologically accurate enough to make my brain chuckle and my heart cry out at the injustice.
“I want to have a free heart, but also a free and open mind,” Hunt said, indicating that a balance is preferable.
Although I’m pretty sure my head is dominant, my heart can win out in sadder moments. The highlight of my conversation with Hunt was bonding over the way we both often spend time quietly imagining things. We also both may get just as much out of interacting with art as we do people.
Hunt recalled interacting with art and thinking “I feel like I’m feeling what they’re feeling. That sense of connection, of I’m not the only one who thinks this way or feels this way, those are very powerful moments.”
Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Kelly Hunt and the songs we discussed, starting with Ozark Symphony, one of the tracks I appreciate for its quiet intensity. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live every Monday at 11am on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://www.kellyhuntmusic.com for more.
Country Pocket 