Bringing her trained soprano voice, poetic songs and healing spirit, Anne Hills will perform live Oct. 17 for the Lake County Folk Club at Grayslake Village Hall.
Hills, who has been in the folk circuit for more than three decades, said her journey has taken her through the art of music, collaboration and healing.
“Part of what we do with music and the arts is we let people know that we all belong,” said Hills. She is not only the winner of many music and poetry awards with more than 20 albums to her credit, but also a licensed clinical social worker.
In Grayslake, Hills will perform audience favorites as well as music from her latest album, “Accidental August,” released this year. When the pandemic forced her to cancel her performances, she joined writer and friend, Al Power, to work on an album. Power, she said, is a geriatrician who lectures about dementia worldwide.
The project became more personal when her longtime friend and folk music partner Michael Smith died.
“We had spent hours and hours of traveling together and talking our way to Texas or southern Illinois. To lose him was losing a brother of the road,” Hills said. “Michael and I wrote a lot of songs together and he was a great writer. He always believed in my writing,” said Hills, who stayed with Smith when he was in hospice at the end of his life.
She also lost her father-in-law while working on the album, inspiring her to write a song with the words “tearing of the sky,” related to the Jewish tradition of tearing a piece of clothing upon someone’s death.
The song also reflects “the healing of the sky,” she said.
Working on the album helped her through her grief, she said.
The lead track, “Accidental August,” includes her singing with a jazz pianist performing a melancholy melody that would be heard on a late night at a jazz club.
Another song features an acoustical guitar with a jazzy, bossa nova style.
That jazz influence is not new to Hills. While taking voice lessons in grade school and high school, she sang with a jazz ensemble. She also received vocal music scholarships, and joined a folk trio. She found her calling there.
“I chose folk music because I love the stress on melody. I love the poetic storytelling of folk music,” she said.
Classical music also has influenced her style — some of her albums include solo oboe, flute and string players accompanying her voice.
She uses music sometimes when working with a client. “One of the songs I use is ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams. The song is reassuring us about the sustaining power of gratefulness and positivity. It lifts people up,” she said.
Some of the fan favorites she’ll likely perform in Grayslake include “Follow That Road.”
“It’s the most-requested song I ever wrote,” Hills said. “I think it’s because it’s about longing for a place, a time, a person. It’s not about directions to a specific place, but about a place in your heart.”
American folk singer and songwriter Tom Paxton wrote that Hills “is such an exquisite singer that it’s understandable that people might be swept up in the pure beauty of her voice and thereby overlook her writing. That would be a mistake. For me, Anne’s writings, in songs like ‘Follow That Road’ and many others, is as direct, melodic and deep as any work being done today.
Another requested song, “Sound of the Loons,” is about feeling connected to a community of people, she said.
“The songs people request tend to be songs that are dealing with deeper issues. As a clinical social worker, I’ve become more in tune with what people struggle with. My writing is bound to reflect that.”
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What she loves most about folk music is that it helps “people feel they’re not alone,” she said.
Anne Hills
When: 7 p.m. Oct. 17
Where: Grayslake Village Hall, 10 Seymour Ave.
Tickets: $13-$18
Information: 847-602-8882, thelakecountyfolkclub.org
Sheryl DeVore is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.