By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Singer-songwriter Kate Hinote writes a lot of breakup songs.
Not that she’s experienced that herself. “I’ve been with the same man since I was 20,” she said.
“Unrequited love and heartbreak and loss is a universal thing people can relate to,” the Detroit-based singer said in a recent telephone interview. She likes to listen to Patsy Cline and “old timey lady singers, and that’s what they were singing.”
The Kate Hinote Trio will bring songs of heartbreak and more to the Alehouse Grill, 1234 N. Main Street, Bowling Green, on Friday, Nov. 5, from 8-11 p.m.
Joining Hinote in the alternative folk trio are guitarist , David Johnson and violinist Matthew Parmenter.
The trio started as a spin off from The Blueflowers, which includes Hinote’s husband Tony Hamera.
That band was a going concern, but Hinote and Johnson wanted to perform more. It’s harder, she said, to book jobs for a quintet, and guys who have to haul amps and drums, may be less enthusiastic about doing a lot of shows.
So Johnson and Hinote booked themselves as an acoustic duo. Then they brought in another singer to add some harmony ,and they became Kate Hinote and the Disasters. But the other singer moved to Ohio. After playing more as a duo, Hinote grew dissatisfied. She missed the harmony of a third member. She was ready to pack it in, she said.
Then Johnson ran into Parmenter at a show. He casually suggested if they were ever interested in adding a violin to the mix he was game.
Hinote was dismissive at first, but when it came up a second time, she relented.
Then they rehearsed. “At our first rehearsal I was instantly in love with the violin and what it did when mixed with my voice.”
Parmenter has “a real gift for melody,” and his violin has a vocal quality. It’s like having another singer to harmonize with, Hinote said.
Now, she said, “I wanted to play everywhere. I wanted to play for everyone. I wanted to make an album. And that’s what we did.”
That album, “Near,” came out in March.
Hinote said she’s gotten a number of songs from other songwriters in Detroit, so she decided to focus on the music of these songwriters, adding music by herself and Parmenter, who fronts the prog rock band Discipline.
“The album itself is pretty eclectic because there’s different sounds in the mix ,” she said. “It still has a cohesiveness.”
Hinote, 45, said she didn’t really start writing music until she was in her mid-twenties, at the urging of her husband.
He gave her a chord progression. She read of book of poetry by Maya Angelou, and drawing inspiration from some of the lines, wrote the lyrics and melody.
That’s typically how she writes. Hamera will give her the chords, and she’ll shape the melody over them, and then add her words.
Melody, she said, is the most important element for her, whether in her own originals or in songs by others. “I do like to be able to relate to the lyrics, but it’s got to be a good melody. It has to be a good fit for my range. I still want the very melodic highs and lows, and some big moments.”
The trio, which came together a few months before the pandemic, is just starting to stretch its touring wings. Hinote said she’s approaching it carefully. At first she envisioned a more extensive tour, but then was concerned that given the direction the pandemic was headed that gigs may be canceled.
One job was booked in Covington, Kentucky, so she reached out to venues in Ohio. Alehouse was the first to respond.
She’s pleased to have the trio making a beachhead in Bowling Green, since its close enough to Detroit to play and not have to stay overnight.
