One Of Us Folks

Despite relocating to Seattle,
singer Karen Pernick hasn't
left her Oak Park/Southfieid/
Ann Arbor roots behind.

finger/songwriter Karen Pernick can
S . relate to the Beatles' line, "You get by
with a little help from your friends."
She got by, alright, thanks to a friend
from college who encouraged her to pick up the
guitar again.
Pernick, who will perform Jan. 31 at the Ann
Arbor Folk Festival, took her first guitar lesson
when she was 8 years old. "I learned three
chords. And really didn't play again until col-
lege. A friend encouraged me," she recalls.
Pernick avoided being the center of attention
when she was growing up. "I was shy. I almost
whispered when I sang," she says. .
It wasn't until Pernick's last year in college at
the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor that
she got up the nerve to play in front of some-
one. "Being on stage frightened me," says
Pernick, who studied psychology.
But these days, Pernick — at 5-foot-10-inch-
es a commanding figure — basks in the spot-
light. Lost in her words and in her playing, she
no longer cares whether she's strumming on a

Camp Tamakwa in northern Ontario every
big stage or in her apartment living room in
year") and of course, her home and life in
Seattle, Wash., where she now lives.
Seattle. Apartment 12 is named after a place I
Not always a West Coast girl, Pernick, 35,
used to visit quite a bit ... and now I live there."
grew up in Oak Park and Southfield. She lived
Besides writing and singing, Pernick also is a
in Ann Arbor for several years and enjoyed a
part-time nanny for a nephew who lives in the
successful career as a massage therapist. Then
Seattle area.
she packed up and headed west.
Like a tune you
Pernick's father, Dr.
cal* quit humming,
Stuart Pernick, a dentist,
Ann Arbor is with
and his wife, Cindy, of
Pernick wherever she
West Bloomfield, will
is. "The turning
likely attend the Ark
point in my life was
fund-raiser, says Pernick.
when I was asked to
Her mother, Edie
take a job position
Pernick of Southfield, a
at the Ark," she says.
counselor for the dis-
Performing
abled, looks forward to
administrative duties
being there when her
as an assistant man-
daughter takes the stage
ager, Pernick realized
and performs works
that she liked more
from her first CD,
kinds
of music than
Karen
Pernick:
"I
take
something,
a
moment,
and
Apartment 12
she ever knew much
give it a lot of detail."
(Shanachie
about, including
Entertainment).
bluegrass and Celtic.
The CD's signature
-
Pernick says she likes to listen to Leonard
tune, "Apartment 12," features Pernick's rich
Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Suzanne Vega, to
voice — sometim_es gutsy, sometimes a whisper,
name a few.
always unaffected — wonderful background
Pernick creates her music through intuitive
vocals and a nice solo guitar midstream. "First
and perceptive means. "I take something, a
Spider," a guitar instrumental, is "actually based
moment, and give it a lot of detail. That's what
on a saying that's something like 'Don't kill the
I'm interested in. Writing is just slowing down
first spider you meet,'" explains Pernick.
Some of Pernick's inspiration comes from her enough to realize what's going on around you." ❑
— Megan Swoyer
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