Singer/songwriter/worship leader and speaker Kim Dexter started her career as front woman for the band Mayfair Laundry, alongside writing for other CCM artists, multiple missions organizations and various children’s music/video projects. Her debut solo CD So This Is It spawned international radio airplay for the hits “Wait” and “We Need Jesus,” while the brand new follow-up Reaching was recorded at Hollywood’s legendary EastWest Studios with an all-star cast of players. She currently resides in Orange County, California with her husband Paul and their children Maggie and Hudson. Often they venture together to various concert venues, churches, women’s conferences and retreats where she shares deeply personal songs and stories of survival, perseverance, courage and healing.
LIFE: For as long as she can remember, the Phoenix-born Kim Dexter has shared a simultaneous love for the Lord and yearning to express herself through music. Her mom was a key influence, not only in cultivating that faith, but giving her piano lessons from age five onward, paving the way for numerous creative pursuits throughout her developmental years. After joining a tight-knit community while attending a Christian high school, Dexter wrote her first official song to commemorate graduation, bidding an emotional farewell to her friends, while also realizing her calling to continue pursuing music in college. After spending three years as a music major, the invitation came to intern at a prominent studio in Dallas, which naturally led to writing, touring as a background singer and recording her own music. “I was in musical heaven and never went back, diving straight into my career.”
ARTIST: Dexter’s first major foray into artistry launched in the late ‘90s when she fronted Mayfair Laundry, the nationally touring Christian rockers (who opened for the likes of Switchfoot, Steven Curtis Chapman and Third Day), in turn, spawning additional demand for Dexter as a writer for other artists. Besides penning tracks for Bryan Duncan, Nicole C. Mullen, Avalon’s Jody McBrayer, and multiple missions organizations, she also wrote the theme song for the immensely popular children’s video “Bibleman” (starring “Eight Is Enough”/“Charles In Charge” favorite Willie Aames). Additional kid-friendly credits include Heaven Sake Kids, Toonacious/Word, TRU Worship, which led her to win an Angel Award (the youth industry’s Grammy equivalent). From there, her first solo CD So This Is It, spawned international radio airplay for the hits “Wait” and “We Need Jesus,” followed by extensive touring and television appearances.
FAMILY: These days, Dexter is based in Orange County, California where she resides with her husband Paul (also a Grammy-nominated, producer, musician and her mixing engineer on the road) and their two children Maggie and Hudson. Often times, the whole family loads up the tour bus and experiences adventures on the road together, while Kim shares her songs and her story at various concert venues, churches, women’s conferences and retreats. Throughout those journeys, she shares deeply personal stories of survival, perseverance, courage and healing.
“My life is a story of miraculous grace, personally, within my marriage, and also with new creative opportunities,” assures Dexter. “God has been there the whole time and i am a testimony that He can truly do anything.”
CURRENT: Dexter is putting the finishing touches on her sophomore CD Reaching. “Reaching is more of a Worship project than anything I have done in the past, yet is still revealing of what God has been doing in my life. I perform a lot of concerts, lead worship at a lot of churches and also sing and speak at women’s conferences and retreats, so this album really has songs for all of those communities. I sing of God's unbelievable grace and mercy, which He continually pours out on us, and His daily salvation, knowing everything that touches my life has to first pass through the hands of God. Whatever I’m experiencing He's allowed and He will use it for my best. When we let go of everything, we can live in true freedom.”
The project is just as powerful on the creative side of the coin, thanks in part to Dexter’s collaboration with producer Jerad Atherton. The sessions from Hollywood’s legendary EastWest Studios (Elvis Presley, Paul McCartney, Frank Sinatra) also include Kim on piano, bassist Jonathan Ahrens (Jason Mraz, Jewel) and drummer Aaron Sterling (Kelly Clarkson, John Mayer).
INSPIRATION: The root for Dexter’s inspirational well runs deep in various directions, first and foremost, with her love for Jesus and her family. Musically, her vast pool of muses includes faith-based powerhouses like Keith Green and Gungor, alongside mainstream favorites like Sarah McLachlan, The Fray and Ingrid Michaelson. Add in some of life’s simplest pleasures, like laughing with her children, green juice drinks and a long work out, coupled with wanting to stir the souls of audiences or address the enormity of suffering in the world, and Dexter emotes authenticity and inspiration at every turn.
“God is always pursuing us, reaching through darkness, loss, and human frailty to the depths of our hearts,” she relates. “In response to this kind of love, I am reaching for more of Jesus and for the highest call He has placed on my life. I always lean on what it says in Philippians 3:13: ‘But one thing I do: Forgetting the past and reaching forward to what lies ahead’...”