Kristen Ford performs her new song "Best Friends" on WNHH FM.
Onstage, a touring indie singer-songwriter was singing a Mother’s Day song paying tribute to a woman who made a difference in her life.
On a stool near the back of Cafe Nine, a woman retrieved a packet of tissues. She pulled one out. She needed to use it several times before the song was done.
The song was about her: The performer onstage, Kristen Ford, is her stepdaughter. It wasn’t the first time the stepmom, Diane Whittie, had shed tears over the song.
You didn’t have to be related to Ford to be touched by the song. You didn’t even have to be a mom or a stepmom (though if you have kids, it may have helped).
“Happy mother’s day / Even though it’s not your name …” Ford sang. “I will always be your kin …” She had the whole audience, not just her stepmom, with her at each step.
Ford’s unvarnished, passionate vocals added to the poignancy, as did the guitar arrangement, which made use of open high strings as a foil for a descending chord progression. Her skills as an arranger were on even more obvious display as her high-energy set continued; using a guitar, a microphone, and a loop pedal, she was able to create the sound of a full band, and like the best loop-pedal users, she made the creation of that sound part of the show, as the audience got to watch each song constructed in front of them.
Ford was in New Haven on a stop in a national “Pride” Tour that doubles as an introduction to the tracks on War in the Living Room, her new (and fifth) album.
Before heading to Boston for her next tour stop, Ford played “Mother’s Day” and stripped-down versions of two songs from the new album amid a discussion about her music and career during a visit to WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. Click on the above video to watch her perform the album’s first single, “Grey Sky Blue.”
Ford, a familiar face over the years on stages in New Haven — where her father and stepmother live — has seen her career start to take off. In addition to the new album and tour, she has an acting role and two songs on the soundtrack album to the 2021 film Valentine Crush. (She plays a roller derby-er named Knockout Nancy.) She has embarked on side projects including Evrgrn, a project with cellist Kels Cordare, and the hip-hop duo Blu Janes, with rapper MC Genesis Blu.
Based in Nashville, Ford is described as an “indie rock singer-songwriter multi-instrumentalist.” I might describe her sound as “Ani DiFranco meets Tracy Chapman meets the Ramones.” (At Cafe Nine she updated “Give Me A Reason” to reflect on American’s downward slide toward fascism.)
Whatever labels one tries to attach to her, Ford is a talent to watch as she continues spreading her wings. She returns to Connecticut for a June 16 stop at Bridgeport’s Park City Music before the tour heads west.
Click on the video to watch the full Kristen Ford interview and performance on WNHH FM's "Dateline New Haven."
And watch her perform at Cafe Nine this week (above).