It’s Tuesday night at Kinfolks and Molly Boyles is grooving on her bass, a smile on her face brighter than any of the light fixtures. Her boyfriend, Roger Anderson, plays drums, and their friend Angelo Valdez is on electric guitar as they charge through a raucous version of Chicago’s “25 or 6 to 4.”
The narrow bar is packed and hopping. In the space between the bar and the tables, a tie-dyed dude holding a Cheez-It box starts dancing. Soon others join in.
A few songs later, Keith McClease from the band B Positive takes the lead mic for a jam of Bob Marley’s “Stir It Up,” and the group transforms into a reggae quartet.
Kinfolks has been hosting Molly Jams just about every Tuesday since January. Thanks to Boyles and her friends, Tuesday is the new Saturday at Kinfolks.
“That was the idea,” club owner Rory Crosby said. “We were looking at how to take Tuesday, when not much is happening, and turn it into something special.”
Crosby had heard Boyles perform, and he was impressed. But the Molly Jam turned out to be more than a performance. It’s become a weekly community event, a gathering of classic rock lovers who find the music and Boyles’ infectious joy irresistible.
Although a jam might make it sound like an open mic, Molly Jam is actually a tight, curated concert featuring Boyles’ trio, often joined by musician friends.
They include Bryant Jones, Tim Costello, David Hebert, Doyle Heffner, Russ Reynaga, Jacob Carver, Sean Gill, Mallory Ferraro, Brooke Whitedove, Keith Morrish, Zack Mink, Brad Easton and Ken Riesterer.
Learning more about Boyles, the woman behind the jam, made it clear that this is a person with a long, delightfully quirky backstory.
“When I was 45 (she’s 52 now), I realized I’d had 45 jobs. That’s one job a year, if I started as an infant,” she said and laughed.
One thing about Boyles: She cracks herself up. A lot. It’s really a defining feature of her personality. And telling stories from her past keeps the laughter coming.
For instance, there’s the time that her band in Los Angeles was performing at the Crustacean, a swanky Beverly Hills restaurant, when Billy Joel showed up and asked to sit in for a song.
Of course, they obliged. Joel wanted to sing a cover of “Try a Little Tenderness.” A former bandmate of Boyles had long tried to get her to play that song and she’d always refused.
“I never liked that song,” she said.
Nevertheless, she tried to wing it. It was Billy Joel, after all.
“I blew that song every which way but Sunday!”
And she laughed, and you can’t help but join in.
Boyles was born into a musical family. Her grandparents were professional bluegrass musicians, and Boyles, at 12, played the mandolin with them. Her father and uncle were country musicians known as the Boyles Brothers.
It’s magic. Pure magic. – Molly Boyles
“My dad was a great musician,” she said. “They were on the Holiday Inn circuit, so I grew up in hotel rooms and at the swimming pool. So that was awesome.”
Her first non-family musician gigs were touring with a punk band called 9:29, named after the time at which the bandmates came up with the name. She was 15 and a student at Palmer High School, but on weekends, she toured throughout the west with 9:29, often winning Battle of the Band contests.
She wanted to play more in the Springs, but all-ages gigs proved elusive. The band briefly played at the Annex, but they were fired after a bandmate painted graffiti on the electrical box outside the club.
After graduation, she eventually moved to California, where she played in a jam band called Mama Sutra and then an all-female funk band called Hunkamama.
She played many huge gigs, including one in Seattle, two days after 9/11, opening for Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
It was a reminder, she said, of how music can serve as a salve for collective pain.
“It was amazing to be part of that,” she said.
Her funk band went on to play ever more impressive gigs, including shows at the Brown Derby and the Mint in L.A. But the stardom she’d dreamed about when she was younger seemed to remain out of reach, and she often worked day jobs to make ends meet.
She also taught piano to kids, worked tech on a Dixie Chicks video and decorated cupcakes.
In 2010, Boyles returned to Colorado Springs to be with her grandmother, who was dying.
It felt important to reconnect with her family. Two years after her grandmother died, her mother passed.
“I’m glad I spent time with them,” she said.
Falling in love with the mountains and the Westside all over again, she decided to stay in Colorado Springs. She had several jobs, many of them working with pre-school children, and eventually became director of a child-care center.
She also worked for the Imagination Celebration and developed her own variety show at the Iron Springs Chateau.
Meanwhile, she played gigs with the jazz trio Lipstick Voodoo.
But she recalled often playing corporate gigs, jamming out, and having somebody in a suit come to the stage and go, “Can you …” and she made gesture of hands lowering.
“Like maybe we were too loud or too much,” she said with that signature laugh.
But after talking to Crosby and developing Molly Jam, she knew she’d found a place where she could let loose.
“It’s not about tearing the doors off with volume,” she said. “It’s just about being allowed to have that much fun, and maybe get a little wacky.”
“Our goal is to play these great songs as they were meant to be, not the watered down version, not the quiet version. And there’s a lot of good music here in town. Really good music. But most of it’s acoustic and bluegrass.
“For me, the power that you can feel when you’re playing electric and you have drummers and you can really do it, a great lead guitar, and such talented guests, it’s magic. Pure magic. That’s what I’m doing with my life.”