“Girl, you sound like a neat glass of single malt in a world of Michelob Ultra.” Those were the words of Grammy award-winning songwriter Mike Reid (“I Can’t Make You Love Me”) when he heard Kira Small sing. This slinky, sultry, soulful siren combines the smoothness of Norah Jones, the rawness of Bonnie Raitt, the hip-ness of Alicia Keys and the flat-out-wailing of Aretha Franklin to bring forth her mix of spellbinding original material and R&B classics.
While Nashville (her current home base) is most known for country music, there is a deep vein of southern soul and R&B running through it that Kira has tapped into, and it has become her lifeblood. What really happened is she found herself surrounded by a bunch of greasy old R&B dudes from the serious south and felt so at home they decided to make a record. That record is her latest CD, Love In A Dangerous World, which was produced by Bruce Dees (James Brown, Ronnie Milsap). It features numerous Motown and Muscle Shoals R&B veterans and sounds pretty much like rib meat falling off the bone.
How does this white chick from Wisconsin sound like anything but a white chick from Wisconsin? Who knows, who cares…it’s working. Maybe it was the gospel, jazz and R&B she discovered in high school. Maybe it was Berklee College of Music's many and varied influences. Maybe it was her years of soaking up soulfulness in Austin, TX. Maybe it was the position of the moon and stars at the precise moment of her birth. Whatever it was, this is an old soul speaking through a vibrant and powerful new voice.
Kira has followed her muse to many musical and geographical destinations. She sang and danced in production shows in San Antonio, witnessed Mardi Gras from behind the piano at Pat O’Brien’s, became a fixture in the Austin music scene, returned to Boston as a member of Berklee’s voice faculty in 1999, and finally (for now) landed in Nashville in 2001 where she has worked with Wynonna Judd, Martina McBride, Gretchen Wilson, Radney Foster, Alan Jackson, Ray Stevens, the Jordanaires, Jimmy Hall, Wayne Jackson of the Memphis Horns, and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, among others.
