Jess Kerber: The Guitar Inside the Song

Listening for the instrument within the song

When a singer-songwriter performs, words naturally attract attention. Yet the guitar may be doing much of the work that makes those words feel inevitable. Jess Kerber offers a rewarding way to explore that relationship. Her public artist biography describes an interest in varied tunings and picking approaches, shaped by musicians including Joni Mitchell and Susan Tedeschi. It also traces a path from Louisiana to study at Boston’s Berklee College of Music and a later base in Nashville. Passim artist profile

For Knoxville Classical Guitar listeners, her work invites a change of focus. We can follow the singer’s line and then turn our attention toward the accompaniment. What remains in motion beneath a held word? Where does the guitar answer the voice? Does a repeated figure make a passage feel settled, or does it keep something unresolved?

Classical music was already part of the household

Kerber’s connection with classical guitar predates her professional songwriting career. In a 2022 interview, she explained that both parents were classical musicians and recalled attending her father’s guitar recitals. She grew up hearing composers including Debussy and Tárrega alongside other family favorites such as the Allman Brothers. She credited her parents with providing extensive musical encouragement and opportunities. Kerber’s We Are: The Guard interview

In the same conversation, she identified Joni Mitchell as an important early influence, especially for the freedom offered by alternate tunings. She described later admiration for Adrianne Lenker, Andy Shauf and Courtney Marie Andrews. These are her stated influences, rather than a claim that every listener will hear a direct resemblance. 2022 interview

That background helps explain why a classical-guitar organization might welcome her songwriting with genuine curiosity. Musical education can inform an artist without determining a single professional category. A child who hears recitals may become a songwriter, and an audience familiar with instrumental repertoire may find something deeply engaging in the relationship between a guitar and a singing voice.

Finding an individual approach

An April 2019 artist listing from the Lilypad in Cambridge documents Kerber’s early public work. It identifies her 2018 EP Falling Forward, performances during her high-school years and her arrival at Berklee as the 2018 recipient of the Berklee/Lollapalooza full-tuition scholarship. The event brought together Berklee friends in an acoustic showcase of original songs. Lilypad showcase announcement

The setting matters as much as the credential. An acoustic showcase creates a place to try songs in front of other people, with the immediate knowledge that somebody is listening. For a writer, that kind of room can reveal whether a phrase communicates, whether an introduction lasts too long or whether a quiet detail draws the audience closer. Those are general possibilities of the format, rather than a reconstruction of that particular evening.

Kerber gave a more direct account of her own writing in a 2025 interview. She collects lines on her phone as they occur to her, but finds that a song often comes together after she develops a guitar part she likes. She also described teaching music and encouraging frustrated students to avoid overthinking. Mystic Sons interview

Her account gives the instrument an active creative role. The guitar is not simply added once the words are finished; a part can help bring scattered material into a song. A student interested in writing could try a modest version of that process: keep a few lines, explore a short musical idea and notice whether either begins to suggest a shape for the other.

A record built through collaboration

Kerber encountered Will Orchard while performing around Boston and Cambridge, and he became a close musical collaborator. Passim biography Their recording work is documented in the credits for From Way Down Here: Kerber wrote the songs and lyrics; production is credited to Orchard, Kerber and Charles Dahlke; Orchard engineered the recordings in Boston in fall 2020; Dahlke mixed them; and Andrew Goldring mastered them. Official album credits

The release history deserves care. The official page dates the Felte edition to June 20, 2025, while explicitly noting an original release in 2022. Calling the music newly created in 2025 would erase part of its history. Its ten-song sequence includes “Never Again,” “Next To You,” “Carry My Home,” “Tropical Storm” and “Over It.” Album listing and credits

For listeners, the credits provide a useful distinction between writing a song and shaping its recorded presentation. Both are creative activities. A studio version may contain parts that cannot all be reproduced by one or two people onstage. Hearing a live version can make us more attentive to what the performer chooses to preserve, replace or leave open.

An existing place in KCG’s conversation

Kerber’s name appears in KCG’s archived 2020–21 season announcement, which scheduled a Knox Guitar Box conversation with her for April 11, 2021. That announcement documents the organization’s interest in her work at the time; it is not, by itself, confirmation that the episode was released. KCG season archive

Knoxville appearances and a new record: November 2026

LeGrand Music Studios presents Jess Kerber and Will Orchard at Fountain City Art Center on Friday, November 6, 2026; the presenter has confirmed the date and venue, but a start time has not been confirmed for this article. They appear the next evening, November 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern, in KCG’s intimate Artist Circle members’ series. Check with KCG for that event’s venue. KCG listing

Kerber’s album The World Is Dark, but I Want It to Be Funny is announced for November 6 on Felte, with nine tracks. That release date coincides with the Fountain City concert, but the concert has not been established as an official album-release event. Release listing

Proposed internal links, to activate after publication: – Will Orchard: Building Songs, Records and Musical Partnerships — /blog/will-orchard-songs-records – Classical and Fingerstyle Guitar in East Tennessee — /blog/classical-and-fingerstyle-east-tennessee – Muriel Anderson: Listening Across Guitar Traditions — /blog/muriel-anderson-guitar-traditions