Kimmie Rhodes

Kimmie Rhodes (born March 6, 1954) is an American singer-songwriter.

She has recorded and released a total of sixteen solo CDs, written and produced three musicals and published a novella/cookbook, served as an associate producer for a documentary, They Called Us Outlaws presented by the Country Music Hall of Fame and produced radio documentary/music programming for her show Radio Dreams, which focused on the history of American roots music and artists.

She has also appeared in multiple films and a theatre production, Is There Life After Lubbock? Her songs have appeared on multiple television and film soundtracks.

She has established and released her own records on her label, Sunbird Music for over 25 years.

Kimmie's promotional tours created a solid fan base in the U.K., Ireland and Europe.

She has headlined with her band at festivals throughout the world and has appeared on many European and American TV and radio broadcasts and at Willie Nelson's Farm Aid concerts and July 4 Picnics.

Together with Willie Nelson she recorded two of her originals for his album Just One Love and a duet CD, "Picture in a Frame".

She lives and records in Austin and tours internationally with her son and producer/multi-instrumentalist, Gabriel Rhodes.

Kimmie Ray Willingham was born to father, Ray Junior Willingham Jr. and mother Bettie Lee Grbavace on March 6, 1954, in Wichita Falls Texas.

Her career as a singer-songwriter and recording artist formally began when she went to Austin in 1979, where friend, manager and drummer, TJ McFarland, introduced her to DJ at the legendary KOKE-FM and producer Joe Gracey, an instrumental figure in the Austin "progressive country" scene.

Rhodes partnered with Joe Gracey and Bobby Earl Smith, forming a band "Kimmie Rhodes & The Jackalope Brothers" and began writing songs and recording demos in the basement studio operated by them.

Rhodes recorded her first album at Willie Nelson's privately owned Pedernales Studios in Spicewood, Texas in 1980 at his invitation.

She fronted a band "The Texas Tunesmiths" led by the legendary steel guitarist, Jimmy Day, and continued performing regionally also with The Jackalope Bros, playing traditional and "progressive" country music and western swing in dancehalls.

In the late 1980s, Rhodes filmed a weekly television series, cast as the Outlaw Sweetheart for The Johnny Gimble Show for Willie Nelson's satellite Cowboy Channel.

Some of Rhodes' movie soundtrack credits include "A Heart That's True" for the Babe: A Pig in the City CD, "I’m Not An Angel" featured in the soundtrack of Mrs. Winterbourne and a song in the Daddy’s Dyin’ Who’s Got the Will soundtrack.

Her song, "Shine All Your Light", co-written with Beth Nielsen Chapman, recorded by Amy Grant for the Touched By An Angel TV series soundtrack and CD, reached the Top Ten in Billboard’s CD charts.

Rhodes co-wrote "Ordinary Heart" with Emmylou Harris and the song was featured in the soundtrack to the movie Happy Texas.

Harris's performance of the song was nominated for a Grammy.

A playwright and actress as well, her debut theatrical project was her musical, Small Town Girl, directed by and starring Joe Sears (of Greater Tuna fame).

She also released a CD by that title of the music featured in the play.

She and Joe Gracey married in 1982 and Joe became her constant companion, muse, bass player, record producer and business partner until he died of cancer at the age of 61 in November 2011.

Together they had one child, a daughter, Jolie Goodnight, who grew to become an accomplished jazz singer and burlesque performer in her own right.

Rhodes continued to make records which mostly embodied her own original songs and began touring internationally with her band and once she had honed her skills as a writer eventually signed on as a co-publisher and writer with Rondor Music International, owned by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss.

She attributes much of her songwriting success to this alliance which extended for over a decade.

She appeared on Austin City Limits with Emmylou Harris, Dave Matthews, Patty Griffin, and Buddy & Julie Miller, where she and Harris performed their song "Ordinary Heart".

She guested on Late Night With David Letterman, performing "West Texas Heaven" at his request.

Rhodes' TV appearances also include a songwriter "guitar pull" Austin City Limits show with Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Billy Joe Shaver.

New West Records released a DVD of that show titled Outlaw Country.

She performed in two segments of The Nashville Network's Legend Series hosted by Willie Nelson and another hosted by Waylon Jennings.

Rhodes co-wrote a song, "Lines", with Waylon for his Justice release.

She had one sibling, Michael Lee Willingham, who died in 2013.

Rhodes' family moved from Wichita Falls, Texas when she was five years old and settled in Lubbock, Texas where she began her singing career at the age of six.

Her father, Ray Junior Willingham Jr., having been orphaned at the age of seven years, during the Great Depression, taught her to sing as a child so she would "have a skill" should the same fate befall her.

He took her with him on his rounds, working as a car dealer/gambler and encouraged her to sing for dimes.

The first songs she learned, the hymn "Old Rugged Cross" and the nursery hymn "Row Row Row Your Boat" began what would become a lifelong repertoire of songs.

She performed at churches, nursing homes and school functions fronting a gospel trio, backed by her father and brother and "whatever pianist was available to accompany the act."

She says her only aspiration at the time was to become a florist because she was in her own mind "already a professional singer."

She learned to read music, singing in school and church choirs where she was placed between the altos and sopranos sections because she had a developed vocal range and an inherent ability to sing harmony passed on by a babysitter with a strong alto voice who took her to church and taught her the harmony part "as if it were the melody line."

She married, left Lubbock and moved to a family farm in Sunset, Texas, where she raised two sons, Jeremie and Gabriel Rhodes while operating an independent greenhouse business and working as a florist.

During this time her husband, Michael Rhodes, operated a family produce farm which she says, "Unfortunately began in what would become the first year of a seven year drought and went bankrupt on the seventh year and that it was "God's way of telling me I wasn't supposed to be a professional squash picker." It was during this time she began to write poems that would later become her first songs and to learn to play guitar, taking lessons and studying music theory.