By Charissa Graves
Hutchinson Tribune Staff
HUTCHINSON—Margot Kimble never planned on becoming a professional musician, nor did she plan on living in Hutchinson.
When Kimble was 5 years old, she and her brother were placed in their first foster home, and the only thing that could get her to stop crying was a children’s rocking chair with a music box attached to it.
“It was the most amazing and incredible thing to me,” she said.
That was the first time she remembers wanting to play music, but it wasn’t until she received her first guitar at the age of 15 that she was able to put that desire into action. She would come home from school every day, teaching herself and practicing until she played something she could recognize, inspired by artists such as John Denver and Joan Baez.
“I just wanted to hear a song.”
She continued practicing for eight months, playing only for herself. At least, she thought she was only playing for herself when she picked up her guitar during a family weekend at Circle Pines Center in Michigan. Someone in the office above where she was playing overheard, and she was offered a summer role as a song leader.
“That’s where I was discovered,” Kimble said. “I’ve been playing for the public ever since I was 16 years old, and that was not my intention at all. I was not trying to be a musician. I wasn’t trying to be that way. I was just soothing something, healing something, nurturing something. It was like a hug, basically.”
She said that it wasn’t until she was 14 that she’d felt a hug from anyone, and her first one came from the same foster mother that gave her that first guitar.
“It was this hug,” Kimble said, “my mother changed my life, and that’s the hug I give everybody to this day. … I didn’t even know you could be touched like that.”
Her and her brother were only supposed to be with that family for an emergency two week placement, but they ended up staying.
“I wanted to be wanted like these people wanted us.”
She grew up in Chicago, and spent a year in college before making the decision to become a traveling musician.
“It wasn’t for me,” she said. “I decided that the world would be my college, and took off. … The music is what led me everywhere.”
The music took Kimble from Illinois to Michigan, New Mexico, Hawaii, Europe, and more, and she’s collected more than her fair share of stories along the way.
“I have never quite had a following,” she said, “because I’ve been traveling, but it was never about that. I’m not trying to be a star.
“I can tell people, the guitar is the bow, the voice is the arrow, and your heart is the target. That’s my model right there.”
Kimble has now been in Hutchinson for seven years, playing regular gigs at Metropolitan Coffee, Sage River Market, the Reno County Farmers’ Market and has even played the Kansas State Fair. She has also recently begun teaching children’s guitar and ukulele lessons through Hutch Rec.
“For whatever reason I’m here, I am grateful for the many wonderful things that have happened.”
It hasn’t always been easy. She has faced judgment and discrimination as a Black woman. However, she said that she is overall appreciative of many of the experiences she has had here, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
At her first performance, Kimble had no sound system and an audience of 30 people or less. A man walked in during her set, and, when she went to thank him for attending, handed her an envelope with a list written on the back, containing every place in the city that would allow her to perform and contact information for each one. When she called, she found out that he had already reached out on her behalf, and all she needed to do was set up a time.
That man was Dale Conkling, who Kimble referred to as her “guardian angel.”
“He changed everything for me,” she said.
He loaned her sound equipment for gigs at the farmers’ market, and during the process of packing up one day, he invited her to play and sing at his church. When she took him up on that invitation a couple of months later, he asked if she wanted to play the next Sunday.
“Everybody greeted me like they knew me,” Kimble said. “It was so beautiful.”
She played “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” by Bob Dylan, and the congregation loved it.
Kimble says that, while she has enjoyed her time here, she wants to see and experience more of the world and spirituality, and to tell stories and give people the same comfort that music has given her.
“I still want to travel,” she said. “I want to touch places. I want to touch people. I want to learn as much as possible.”
She’s not opposed to coming back to Hutchinson the next time she takes off, but she’ll continue to go wherever the music takes her.