Today we’d like to introduce you to Terry Klein.
Terry, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I’m a recovering lawyer. I was the head of a thriving litigation practice in Boston, Massachusetts before I gave that up and moved to Texas with my wife and two daughters to pursue singing and songwriting full-time. While I played music in Los Angeles in my early 20s, I didn’t write my first song until I was forty and didn’t sing a song of my own on a stage until I was a week shy of my 41st birthday. The progress I’ve made in four short years — from writing bad songs to writing songs that were less bad, making a record, having that record chart domestically and in Europe, being invited to play at the Kerrville Folk Festival — is kind of mind-boggling when I think about it
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I write songs and I sing them for people. Songs are incredible things. In three or four minutes, you can tell a rich story or paint a picture or capture some magical moment. At their best, I think they heal us, connect us to each other, and inspire us. Songwriting is a spiritual process, which is an odd thing for someone like me to say. For years, I focused on hard facts and logical processes, but songwriting is a mystical endeavor. I don’t know why songs come to find me. I don’t know when they’re coming. So, I try to put myself in position to be available when they do come. And I’m so grateful when they do.
How do you think about success, as an artist, and what do quality do you feel is most helpful?
There are all the traditional markers of success, like growing a fanbase, having people show up at shows, all of that. For me, the richer success is in writing a song that connects with people. I have a song about living with someone who has bipolar disorder. I have a song about a couple struggling to have kids. I have a song about a woman who’s lived a full life and is in a nursing home and is ready to move on. When folks come up to me after a show with tears in their eyes and talk about these songs as resonating with their own experiences, that’s a sacred moment. And after working in a context where success was about how many hours I could bill, how many trials I could win, that sacredness means a lot to me. I can feel it in my bones.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
I travel all over Texas, and love coming to Houston especially, so they can come to a show! They can buy my record on my website, which is www.terrykleinmusic.com. It’s streaming in all of the usual places, too.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.terrykleinmusic.com
- Email: terry@terrykleinmusic.com
- Instagram: @kleinsongs
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/terrykleinmusic
- Twitter: @kleinsongs
Image Credit:
Pete Holland, Victor Mikeska, Donny Hall & Lindsay Sobel.
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