Jaime Kyle was caught off-guard when she found out Heart wanted to cover one of her tunes. The pop ballad “Stranded” – featured on Heart’s 1990, multi-platinum Brigade – went on to reach number 13 on Billboard’s Hot 100.
“I was in awe of Heart recording one of my songs because I’m such a huge fan of theirs,” Kyle says. “I was writing the song for myself but it found its way to Heart and they recorded it. I grew up listening to them so it’s a huge deal – still – when I hear it on the radio.”
Kyle has also left her songwriting fingerprints on albums by everyone from Faith Hill to Air Supply to Patty Loveless. These days, Kyle’s focus is on her forthcoming fifth album, which she’s co-producing with her husband/Pablo Cruise guitarist Dave Jenkins, who will be joining her Saturday at the Golden State Theatre.
Kyle describes the record as “a hybrid of a lot of music that I’ve grown up on.”
“There’s ’70s and ’80s and a little bit of folk in there,” she says. “It’s like Americana with a rock edge but it’s also very organic.”
No matter what she’s working on, Kyle doesn’t let outside motives influence her.
“I think music stays more pure when you do it for the right reasons,” she explains. “I learned that from living in Nashville where a lot of writers write every day, whether they feel like it or not.”
Kyle prefers to write only when moved to do so. With “Who I Am,” Kyle wrote about having a loved one with Alzheimer’s. The result is a love letter awash with acoustic fingerpicking and jump-out-of-the-speaker imagery: “I drove to your home in the Valley of Lehigh/ Where the ghosts of the steel mills break the sky.”
“It’s not about the quantity of songs, it’s about the quality,” Kyle says.
Either way, she has both.
JAIME KYLE with DAVE JENKINS and BERNADETTE CONANT perform at 9pm Saturday, April 6, at the Golden State Theatre, 417 Alvarado St., Monterey. $15. 297-2472.
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