Galaxy Series to feature hard-working jazz, rhythm and blues singer March 24

Tickets for Kathy Kosins’ March 24 concert at Memorial Hall can be reserved by calling the CSC Box Office at 308-432-6207 or by email to boxoffice@csc.edu. 

But the effort pays off in the joy of singing for an audience, said Kosins, who has worked with many of the top names in jazz and soul music during her 40-plus year career.

“I love the art of telling a story in a song. I love being onstage,” Kosins said.

A Detroit-area native, Kosins had no formal music training and never made a conscious decision to become a singer.

“I started thinking about it when I was 18. I was going to community college and auditioned for a rock and roll band and got the gig,” she said. “I wanted to be Janis Joplin.”

Early in her career, Kathy met musician and producer Don Was, now the president of Blue Note Records, presented him a demo tape, was hired as a backup singer and vocal arranger for his successful band Was (Not Was), and then became a sought-after session singer.

“I had a big disco single in the mid-80s. I toured all over the place,” she said.

Recording and touring were only part of the story, though, and Kosins said her business sense has been critical to her career.

“I just hustled…I picked up the phone and made calls,” she said. “I’m a business woman.”

The efforts paid off with work doing radio and TV commercials, and she eventually had enough to begin making her own records, said Kosins.

In the 1990s, Kosins became enthralled with jazz and her song writing evolved from rhythm and blues and pop into more traditional jazz forms. She had her first big engagements as a jazz vocalist with the JC Heard and Nelson Riddle orchestras, and released her first album, with nine original songs, in 1996. She has four other albums to her credit, including 2012’s highly praised “To the Ladies of Cool,” a tribute to four prominent west coast singers of the 50s and 60s.

“Her style is sophisticated, yet natural, torchy but breezy,” Larry Taylor said of Kosins in his review of the album for www.Allaboutjazz.com.

Kosins’ latest album, “Uncovered Soul,” produced by Grammy award-winning producer Kamau Kenyatta and due out in September, includes jazz, soul and R&B tunes.

“I went full circle, back to my R&B roots,” she said. “I want to widen my audience. The younger audience responds more favorably to urban contemporary (music).”

Kosins’ performance in Chadron will include a mix of musical styles and will incorporate members of the CSC music faculty and the college’s jazz ensemble.

“We’ll mix it up a bit,” she said.

CSC music students will also have a chance to interact with Kosins directly in some classes, said Shellie Johns, coordinator of conferencing. Kosins will be speaking to a music business class about the life and business skills of a professional performer, said faculty member Dr. Sandy Schaefer.

“Kathy does a good job at the business aspects,” Schaefer said.

Kosins said her first piece of advice for people aspiring to a performing career is “to get a day job.”

“I’m being honest. Doing what I do is the hardest thing,” she said. “You have to be willing to sacrifice. You are breathing and living your career 24/7…You are selling yourself.”

New technology has made changes in the music business that have been both good and bad for performers, according to Kosins. Musicians have many more ways to reach an audience and promote their work, she said, but file sharing and streaming services have taken away a significant source of their income.

“People aren’t buying CDs. Artists make money on CDs. They make nothing on digital streaming,” she said. “I still sell CDs at venues, but not as many as I used to.”

But performing onstage, not selling CDs, is what Kosins’ really loves.

“I do it as often as I get gigs,” she said.

And hard work pays off in opportunities to perform, said Kosins.

“It took six years to get in the Galaxy Series, but I don’t give up,” she said.