Search - Kate Macleod :: Trying to Get It Right

With a spare, often chilling lyric style and a voice that shimmers like an arrow in sunlight, Kate MacLeod delivers original songs in the folk tradition. She plays guitar, harmonica and fiddle. "Alaska" sketches the moody inner monologue of a drifter. "Angels on my Mind" is written from the point of view of a miner who was ill, home from work, the day that the fire in the Wilberg Mine broke out near Orangeville, Utah, Dec. 19, 1984: "Maybe someday, maybe someday, they will find a replacement for the hard hearted black coal Then leave the mines lazy, let them lie lazy Let them lie lazy, those dark shafted fire holes Angels on my mind..." Kate was born in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, and grew up near Washington, D.C. She performed during her teenage years as a violinist in orchestras and chamber music groups. Kate also fostered her strong interest in traditional music by playing fiddle and exploring the diverse music scene around Washington D.C. In 1979, she moved to Salt Lake City, Utah to study violin making. She devoted several years to raising her three children. During these years, she performed occasionally in a variety of celtic, bluegrass, and old-time stringband ensembles around the Salt Lake City area. In 1993 Kate began a friendship with the late Charles Sawtelle, guitarist of the bluegrass band, Hot Rize, who produced Kate's first two bluegrass-flavored recordings, "Trying to Get It Right" (1995) and "Constant Emotion" (1997). Kate's lyrics have invited comparisons to John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie, and her singing has been compared to that of Nanci Griffith and Emmylou Harris. Songwriters Kate cites as inspiration for her are Jean Ritchie, Norman Blake, Peter Rowan, Mary McCaslin, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and many others; but Kate is very much an original.