Kyle White said she will never turn her back on her hometown. Though she has moved around, Toledo will always have a special place in her heart.
“I love being here,” White said. “My friends and my family are here and it’s a good place to be.”
For this year’s Toledo Free Press “Red, White & You, Too!” CD benefiting The American Red Cross of Northwest Ohio, White wrote and performed a song dedicated to the city she loves.
“‘Glass Cities’ is a song about how I feel about Toledo,” White said. “I wrote it kind of in response, not really in response, but kind of an answer back to people who are so down on our city.”
White said she wants her listeners to take away an optimistic feeling from the track, which talks about never throwing stones at the town that raised her.
“As far as this song — a positive message [encouraging] living for the moment and not taking life too seriously,” White said. “It becomes a burden.”
White has not always been a Toledoan. She lived in Portland, Oregon, for a few years as a child and when it came time for college, White packed her bags and moved out to Cleveland.
“I was going to Cleveland State, then I moved back to Toledo and finished college at the University of Toledo,” White said. “I liked Cleveland but it wasn’t home.”
White finds inspiration in “everyday life. “A lot of songs that I wrote are my own personal experiences,” she said.
Working on these benefit discs for the past few years has given White a glimpse of many different musical perspectives.
“You get to hear a lot of other people’s music and experience that and that’s kind of cool,” she said.
White said her goal for the album is simple: to raise sufficient funds for the Red Cross.
“I hope that they sell a lot of them and raise a lot of money,” White said. “That’s the whole purpose behind it.”
The CD is available for $10 at area Frisch’s Big Boy and Ralphie’s locations.
White’s next step includes some personal projects as well as collaborations with other Toledo musicians.
“I’m writing and working on my third album right now, which I’m hoping to have done by this fall or early winter,” White said. “I’m trying to start a songwriting session with other songwriters in Toledo to collaborate and write music that way.”
White said she is thankful that Michael S. Miller, who produces the benefit CDs, chose her to sing for each of the projects.
“It’s neat to be part of a compilation of other area artists,” White said. “It’s nice to be included in part of a community thing where everyone is contributing something worthwhile.” O
