Performance-grade Diesel

The sweet singer with a high-test name returns to Kansas after a long absence.

BY JILLIAN COHAN

The Wichita Eagle

Although she was born in Kansas, pop-folk artist Diesel says her memories of Hutchinson are hazy. It's the place her parents split up, but also the place where her grandmother encouraged her love of nature and her creative spirit.

The singer-songwriter left Kansas right before her fourth birthday, setting off a peripatetic childhood.

"We moved a lot when I was a kid, so I didn't have a strong connection to any one place," she says by phone from southeast Kansas, where she's doing a weeklong residency at Coffeyville Community College.

Diesel uses words like "charming" and "rejuvenating" to describe her return to the Midwest. She'll plays two shows in Wichita this weekend, tonight at the Pump House in Old Town and Saturday at Central Riverside Park as part of the Acoustic Arts in the Park concert series.

She may be rediscovering Kansas, but her true muse is an island full of jacaranda blossoms, towering waterfalls and trails perfect for horseback riding.

"I was drawn to Maui," she says. "There was a culture, a creative community, where I could assert myself as an artist. It's impossible not to create there."

The island setting prompted her to write the ethereal songs that have become her trademark, and to record several critically lauded independent albums. Her sound is a little like Dar Williams, or somewhat like Suzanne Vega, with an overlay of New Age spirituality.

"My producer has always said about me that I have my head in the clouds and my feet on the ground," Diesel says. "I find a lot of spiritual connections in nature... that's usually where I get my inspiration."

When people settle on Maui, they often take a new name, like Moonflower or Dawn, the singer says. But she already had one.

"Even my mother calls me Diesel," she says, declining to give her birth name. "A friend of mine thought (the nickname) matched my personality because I'm a petite Midwestern blond woman (but) I'm a spitfire. I'm not always what people expect from me."

She pines for Hawaii, but after years of splitting time between the islands and the mainland, Diesel relocated to Nashville, where she and producer/co-songwriter Josh Whitmore found it easier to launch their frequent tours of the East Coast and Midwest.

"It was frustrating in Maui because it's hard to share your music with the world," she says. "I don't really fit into the Music Row scene, but there are a lot of touring artists based out of Nashville."

Having Music City at her back also helped Diesel catch the eye of an Atlanta-based label; she hopes to announce a record deal this fall and to release her upcoming CD, "Walking in the Valley of I Don't Know," soon after.

In the meantime, she'll savor her time in Kansas and make new memories with the family she left behind decades ago.

"My cousin Julie is coming down from Hutchinson for the (Wichita) show," she says, sounding giddy. "She was the first one to buy my CD, before it even came out."

Jillian Cohan has never been to Maui. *Sigh*. Reach her at 316-268-6524 or jcohan@wichitaeagle.com