Premiere: Kelly Augustine, shedding Light in the Lowlands

Hurt Too Big

Woody Guthrie said, “It’s a folk singer’s job to comfort disturbed people and to disturb comfortable people,” and Kelly Augustine takes justifiable pride in following that charge.

Light in the Lowlands, explores stories of darkness and salvation, poverty and triumph, all of which Augustine witnessed from her childhood. Growing up on an unpaved road in a dirt-under-your-fingernails small Oklahoma town, Kelly learned from an early age that life is what you make it.

Drawn to medicine by her love for humanity, an “Aha” moment in the hospital turned her life toward a different kind of healing—writing songs that spoke to people. Now based in Denver, Augustine is a full-time singer/songwriter with a string of awards and nominations to her credit.

Recorded in Norman, OK, back near her roots, the album is rich with character sketches, stories of addiction, loneliness, and poverty, but also stories of resilience and healing. In “Hurt Too Big,” the emotions, although inspired by the stories of veterans returning from war, is universal: we all experience wars in our minds and hearts.

Augustine told Elmore, “Young men and women go off to war, and they experience things that they may not fully understand the consequences of until years later. Many veterans who return home have a very difficult time assimilating and feel alone and disconnected from the people who love them most. I wanted this song to shed light on their experiences and suffering. The video needed to be simple to focus on the song, and I thought black and white captured the emotion best.”