Mimi Nikkel
Dunlap, Tn.-based singer-songwriter Mimi Nikkel has released the tender folk ballad “Coming Home” just in time for Mother’s Day. The song explores the safety a mother’s love can create. It is streaming now on Apple Music and Spotify.
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Lifelong songwriter Mimi Nikkel lives in rural Appalachia, where she gives guitar lessons to local children. One particular 10-year-old quickly became both student and musical partner. In addition to occasional gigs together, Mimi would visit the girl’s house for weekly lessons.
“I had the chance to really get to know her family," said Nikkel. "They’re beautiful people. They live off the grid and are living off the land like many of us are up here. The family homeschools. I was there and we were having our guitar lesson, and I just heard the way her mom was talking to the younger children and listening to them. I thought, wow, she is connecting to them as the beautiful human beings God made them to be. She is reaching in, excited about their ideas, welcoming their input, asking them questions that engage who they are as little human beings created by God.”
This experience was particularly meaningful to Nikkel given that it stood in sharp contrast to her own experience as a child.
She says, “I grew up in the 60s and the 70s, and that generation parented from the top down. We were told what to do, how to be, what we needed, when we needed it. Those things were dictated to us. Our generation didn’t have people who engaged with us as human beings and nurtured and encouraged us to be the sweet, kind humans that God created us to be.”
Observing the sacred sweetness of her young student’s mother inspired Nikkel to return home and write the tender, moving folk ballad “Coming Home.” Marked by softly swelling string arrangements and crystal clear guitar that mirrors the rolling landscape of her beloved rural Tennessee, “Coming Home” is comfort embodied. The song was produced by Don Stock, better known as Jettisoned Gypsy.
Nikkel has been a singer and songwriter since she was 12 years old. She put her love of making music on hold to found and lead the nonprofit organization Love’s Arm in Chattanooga, an organization that works with survivors of sex trafficking and exploitation. When she retired, Nikkel was free to return to the love of music that has held her heart since she was a girl. The simplicity of her life today allowed her the chance to observe this mother in her community and capture it in song.
“If I’d had a mama like that growing up, I’d want to come home and visit her. I’d want to!” Nikkel summarizes. “Hopefully, when you hear it, you’ll think about your mom and want to share it with her too.”