Local Performers ‘Dave & Kristi’ Release First Album

Dexter residents Dave Boutette and Kristi Lynn Davis, who have performed throughout the community for several years, recently recorded their first professional album The Chickadees.

“It’s really exciting,” Kristi said of the recording process. “And it’s a way for people who wouldn’t get to hear us live to hear us, because once you release an album and you’re everywhere, you’re accessible on the internet, then anyone in any country can hear you. It’s great to be able to reach more people.”

While both have been passionate about music their whole lives, the two of them had separate projects for many years, including other bands and musical theatre performances, until a decade ago. 

“About 10 years ago, I was playing at a music festival in northern Michigan, and Kristi was sitting in the audience,” Dave said. “And one of my musical colleagues who was on stage with me knew that Kristi could sing, and just said, ‘Kristi, you should come up and sing.’ And so Christy did. And then she just never left. She’s been there right next to me the whole time for 10 years.”

The two of them decided to record The Chickadees after several months of Dave attending a songwriting group led to the two of them having a lot of material to work with.

“The CD is 13 songs, and I think we might have had like 21 candidates to get on there,” Dave said. “We just picked the songs that were the strongest, and then when we kind of looked at the grouping, we realized that there were repeating themes within the songs that we selected. A lot of it has to do with love, and not just romantic love, but the greater good kind of love. But there was also a fair amount of processing loss. We had a lot of loss in the last couple of years, and so there’s loss and coping with loss and finding the dawn on the other side.”

The Chickadees is available as a CD on Dave and Kristi’s website. The two of them will be performing at the Dexter Summer Festival on Aug 8 with local violinist Brad Phillips.