Rock harpist
Age • 43
Why she’s interesting • Having played the harp since she was a kid, Kline has reinvented a host of gritty rock classics on the heavenly sounding instrument. Her CD, “Harp Rock,” features 14 songs ranging from Pink Floyd (“Comfortably Numb”) to Santana (“Black Magic Woman”) to Led Zeppelin (“Stairway to Heaven”).
Playing the heart strings • Kline started playing at age 12 with a troubadour harp, a small version of the instrument, and graduated to the full-scale harp a year later. “I begged my parents to buy it for me,” she says. “It’s just something I knew I wanted to do.”
Volt of confidence • Kline recently bought an electric harp from a company in France. “You can make it sound like Jimi Hendrix,” she says.
Where you may have seen or heard her before • She performed classical pieces and show tunes on the harp at The Ritz-Carlton Cleveland for years. She also made a recording of Egyptian folk songs that has been distributed to the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, as well as art museums and yoga classes across the United States. (It’s also available at 190 Borders locations.) Last year, she recorded a version of ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’ ” for a May episode of the Fox series “Bones.”
Reinventions in progress • She is currently working on a harp version of The Doors’ “Break on Through,” but is also working “more metal” into her repertoire, wielding her electric harp on Metallica and Black Sabbath songs as well.
What she’s working on now • Improvisational harp music for animals. Really. “Someone told me they had played my CD for their pet, and it relaxed them. I figured if you have a yippy dog, it might help calm them down.”
