On Wednesday June 19th, Brent Bjorman and Joel Chapman visited musician Jane Pearl at her home in Bowling Green, Kentucky. After living in England for nearly 20 years, Pearl has returned to Bowling Green to be the primary caregiver of her father’s estate, which includes the stone home he built on Chestnut Street where she now resides.
Before moving to England, Pearl had been an active musician in the Bowling Green music scene throughout the late 1970s to early 1990s, playing with The Ken Smith Band, Robert Phillips and the Fender Benders, and many more.
They had planned to conduct the interview outside on Pearl’s back porch, but the quiet calm of her garage provided the perfect atmosphere for the interview. Sitting on wooden crates Pearl had supplied as chairs, Bjorkman and Chapman sat surrounded by well-loved yard tools, textiles, and Jane’s Subaru as she shared how family and church played an important role in shaping her love of music as a young girl in South Central Kentucky.
[Image Description: Jane Pearl, a middle-aged woman with long, graying hair, is looking ahead, smiling. She is wearing a bright purple shirt and a strand of turquoise beads around her neck. In the background rakes lay against the cement blocks that form the interior wall of her garage.]
Kentucky Folklife Program 