Lori McKenna is a mother of five from Stoughton, Mass. (pop. 27,000), about 20 miles outside Boston. There, she lives quietly—well, as quietly as a house with five children can get—with her husband of 18 years, Gene, a plumber for the local gas company. For years she drove her kids to school in a 1999 Ford Windstar minivan with 150,000 miles on it. It is fitting Lori entitled her Warner Bros. Records/Stylesonic Records debut album Unglamorous.
Lori McKenna is also an acclaimed singer-songwriter who was thrust into the limelight last year when superstar Faith Hill included three of McKenna’s songs on her Number One album Fireflies, including Hill’s poignant single “Stealing Kisses.” Hill (herself a wife and mother of three) heard in McKenna’s work what a steadily growing audience has been hearing since her 1998 debut, Paper Wings & Halo: an intimate understanding and honest expression of the realities of domestic life.
“My priority is, I want to write great songs, timeless songs, songs that affect people,” McKenna says. “But if I have the blessing to be able to share the way I interpret my songs with people, then I want to do that, too.”
