Kim and Reggie Harris are talented singers and storytellers who have performed in schools, churches and community venues for the past 35 years. They met in 1974 and decided to start a guitar club. “We learned how to play guitar and to sing. Music has always been part of our relationship.” Kim says.
At that time, Reggie was an English major at Temple University in Philadelphia and he thought he would be an English teacher. “When I discovered the guitar, all I could do was play music.” Reggie says. Since, then, Kim and Reggie’s career has unfolded little by little. They started looking around for places to play and played at a comedy club for two years before they decided to move on to playing as professional musicians.
Photo by Jacob Foko/Full Sail University
Kim has been working on a PhD for 14 years and is close to completing her thesis, which is a Catholic mass that uses African American freedom songs and spirituals: She says: “What inspires me so much is the fact that the freedom song and the spiritual were sung by my ancestors in slavery and this music helped them to hold on, to make it through, and to work for freedom.”
Photo by Jacob Foko/Full Sail University
Kim and Reggie bring their rich musical traditions to young and old alike but, perhaps more importantly, as Reggie says, they encourage the audience to sing and celebrate with them, in the here and now.