"One of New England's best songwriters"
-Craig Harris, Boston Globe.
"Terry Kitchens songs are portraits of ordinary people and emotions, captured with extraordinary compassion, honesty and humor. A talented writer."
-Richard Middleton, Victory Review.
"Terry Kitchen is definitely a cut above with his eye for detail and unique song ideas. With a keen sense of melody, Terrys songs truly deliver and take the listener on an emotional ride!"
-Jeff Pearson, The Bluebird Cafe.
"Terry Kitchen picks up where Elvis Costello and Tom Waits merge and leave off."
-Vance Gilbert.
Boston-based singer/songwriter Terry Kitchen was born in Phillipsburg, New Jersey and grew up on Easton, Pennsylvania's College Hill (home of Lafayette College, setting for his song "The Greatest Game They Never Played," where he saw his first rock bands at anti-war rallies on campus). As a bored teenager Terry roamed the small town streets of Findlay, Ohio (the inspiration for "The Seven Eleven Overture" and "I Own This Town") before escaping to Los Angeles for college (Occidental) and music school (then The Guitar Institute of Technology, now the Music Instititute). He moved to Boston and fronted the '80s original pop/rock band LOOSE TIES (whose video was played on MTV exactly once) before settling on the intimacy of acoustic music as the most natural setting for his songs.
For the past fifteen years Terry has performed on the New England and national coffeehouse and folk festival circuits (including Club Passim in Cambridge, Cafe Lena and the Postcrypt in New York, Godfrey Daniels in Pennsylvania, and the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, and the Falcon Ridge, Telluride and South Florida folk festivals) and shared the stage with such artists as The Roches, John Gorka, Cheryl Wheeler, Dan Bern, Vance Gilbert, the Nields, Richard Shindell and Susan Werner.
Kitchen has released eight solo CDs including his latest, 'heaven here on earth,' his most adventurous and energized CD yet which features a fulll band on most tracks while still keeping focus on his literate, detail-rich songwriting, fluid guitar playing and intimate vocals. Produced by Kitchen and Daniel Cantor (drummer for the band Jim's Big Ego), the album ranges from the drag race opera "The Seven Eleven Overture" with its accordion and Mark Knopfler-esgue guitars to the baroque string quartet of "Nothing Works better." The result is soundscape that takes the listener to the heart of each song.
'heaven here on earth' follows 2004's 'that's how it used to be,' a moody, ecologically themed album, 2002's 'Right Now' (which reached 34 on the national folk DJ chart), 1999's 'blues for cain & abel' (a deeply personal collection of songs of doubt and faith which includes his bluesy rendition of the Beatles' "Let It Be"), 1997's 'blanket' (which was voted number 21 best CD of that year by Folk Digest) and 1995's 'I Own This Town.'
Kitchen's songs have won the USA Songwriting Competition and Mid-Atlantic Song Contest and been runner up in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest.
