Performing to an intimate audience at Pitman’s Freight Room in Laconia, 29-year-old singer-songwriter Katie Dobbins showed she has the ability to mesmerize the crowd.
From her sticky-note inspiration that led to the creation of a music video to her passionate “Bring On the Fire”, Dobbins engaged her audience and interspersed some modest humor which made them feel that they may have known her for years.
Dobbins, who grew up in Gilford but now teaches in the Boston area, was joined on some songs by Marie Kettenring on violin and Mike Moran on bass, and she did one number with Jack Polidoro, who opened the show for her.
“I’ve been playing as long as I can remember,” she said during a recent interview. “We had a piano in our house, and I took lessons. Dad always had guitars, and I sang in a choir. We didn’t have a car radio — it was broken — so we’d make up stories and songs as we drove. That’s where my creativity came from.”
She was writing songs in seventh and eighth grade, but set her music aside while attending college and then while working with autistic people at a nonprofit organization in the Boston area.
“I had a collection of songs I was working on, but in college, I was focused on school,” she said. “Then i was working.”
She admits that fear played a part.
“I considered it a hobby, and was afraid to actually pursue it,” she recalled.
That changed when she attended the She Is Free Christian Conference in New York City.
“I realized it was a part of myself, and decided I was going to make a CD. It was really important to me,” she said.
Then she booked and promoted her debut album, “She Is Free”, which she recorded in Gilford and released last year.
Her first real gig did not come until two years ago.
Collaboration
Jack Polidoro, who performs as “The Good Dr. Jack”, is a former Laconia resident now living in Gilmanton. He said he had not collaborated with anyone in 50 years of performing music, but that changed after hearing Dobbins.
“I listened to some of her [music], and saw she had some good stuff coming down,” he said.
Dobbins met Polidoro during an open mic at Ashland’s Common Man Restaurant. “Then I started seeing you everywhere,” she told him.
Polidoro suggested that she join other musicians at a music contest during last year’s Belknap County Fair.
“I lost and they all won,” he observed. “But I love your music.”
They decided to collaborate on a song and found they enjoyed working off each other’s suggestions.
“You have to let go of your music and recognize that you’re not in control all the time,” Polidoro said. “It takes a willingness to hear things you didn’t hear, and then you can decide to say yea or nay.”
They came up with the music on day one of their collaboration, Dobbins said.
Each generally approaches music from a different angle. Dobbins starts with the lyrics and then puts music to it, while Polidoro generally starts with the melody and comes up with the lyrics. In collaborating, Dobbins said, “I’m always honing in — what story do we have to tell?”
Polidoro said asking that question “exploded into lyrics, with the highway becoming a metaphor for seeking freedom.”
He noted that “Highway To A Memory” is a working title for the song that may change as they refine it.
“It’s about understanding yourself through a wider understanding of your past,” Dobbins said. “It brings out unresolved issues we didn’t know we had.”
“Inspiration can come from anywhere,” Polidoro observed. “My goal’s always been the music, not the business. … You hang in there and keep doing what you’re doing and hope somebody is going to pick up on it.”
Working with Polidoro is inspiring for Dobbins: “It’s encouraging,” she said. “He demonstrates that music isn’t something you grow out of. You just love it and find joy in it, and I hope I do that with my whole life.”
The music
Dobbins is working her second studio album, which she plans to release in the spring.
“It’s definitely therapeutic,” she said of songwriting. “It’s an exciting way for me to communicate my feelings and my thoughts to others.”
Now teaching at a public school, Dobbins said she still tries to make time for her “creative muse” and she noted that, having time off this summer, she was able to write four new songs.
“I’m blown away by how much music can move people,” she said.
Dobbins said she originally planned to make an EP album, “but just got too excited” and now has 10 songs for her new CD.
“My writing has evolved to be more personal as I’ve redefined who I am as an artist,” she said.
