Singer-songwriter Howard Kirkpatrick is a recording artist best known for his honeyed, slightly gravelly vocals and hauntingly moving songs whose sound lands somewhere between Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel. A regular fixture on both the Boston local music scene and the national folk festival circuit, fans know him best for songs like “Change Gonna’ Come” and “Old Granite Stones”.
Howard Kirkpatrick was born and raised in Chicopee, Massachusetts, near the Berkshires. His father worked for the Bay State Gas Company, served in WWII and Korea in the U.S. Marine Corp and his mother was a registered nurse who cared for elderly service members at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home. These working-class roots are perhaps what underlies the purity and authenticity that his songs are known to possess. He’s an artist who doesn’t rhyme just to rhyme, nor write songs that attempt to sound like the latest hits on I Heart Radio.
Instead, he writes songs from somewhere deep within his heart and soul that explore his own journey of experiences and the bigger picture of the human condition. Consider fan favorites like “Stars” or “No Closer”. Howard Kirkpatrick started playing the piano at age 6, studying with such heavyweight concert and session pianists in their own right like Ken Manzer, Anna Koscielny, Ed Cerveny and Ray Hanson. Kirkpatrick was a fast learner. And possessed almost supernatural abilities as a concert pianist. He gave his first public concert at age 12, performing all three movements of Beethoven’s Sonata Pathetique, Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu in C# minor, Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2, and Debussy’s Jardins Sous la Pluie (gardens in the rain).
At the age of 10, he started to play the guitar, which inspired him to start writing his own songs by the age of 12; now able to write on both the piano and guitar, Kirkpatrick turned out to be a prolific songwriter in a variety of different genres from classical to blues, rock, R&B, American Standards and popular music. He continued to write songs and perform throughout the metropolitan Boston, Cambridge and the Berkshires music scenes while attending college and then law school, along with contemporaries who were also filled with passion and talent for music making like Lori McKenna, Ellis Paul, Christopher Williams and Mark Erelli.
The unique depth of spirit and romanticism in Kirkpatrick’s songs along with his passionate vocals made him a popular fixture in the Boston scene where he would often play to packed houses and standing room only crowds. He was soon selected as one of the Emerging Artists of the Year from all over the world by the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, which started him on the folk music festival circuit, where larger and larger audiences began to discover him.
These performances as well as the word of mouth about his shows also got him noticed by legendary Grammy nominated producer and composer, Tom Eaton, who was recording a lot of the scene’s most talented singer-songwriters at the time. One of them, Lori McKenna, went on to become a household name both as a songwriter and singer. Kirkpatrick looks back fondly on the shows when their paths crossed, as part of Boston’s thriving music scene. It didn’t take long for Eaton to discover Howard Kirkpatrick and upon meeting, the two clicked immediately.
Eaton first produced Kirkpatrick’s album of improvisational Christmas songs, The Christmas Album. They then spent a few months in the studio along with some of the most talented and well-known musicians in the scene to record nearly twenty of Kirkpatrick’s most popular songs from his live shows, songs that would eventually be chosen for his debut album on Dying Van Gogh Records, Much About Much.
It was recording artist Ed Hale (Ed Hale and the Transcendence) who heard some of these songs and said he immediately knew Kirkpatrick belonged on the Dying Van Gogh label. “Artists like Howard come along once in a blue moon,” stated Hale. “He’s got these soulful vocals that can express both passion and pain at the same time… and his songs are just about as moving as songs get. They sound like you’ve heard them before. As if they’re already a hit song. And yet every few seconds they surprise you with something new and exciting.”
The first single from Howard Kirkpatrick’s upcoming album on Dying Van Gogh is due out in March 2026.