A Sister

Kate’s overall influences were absorbed growing up in an informally musical family: the Tin Pan Alley rags her father sang around the house, her mother’s Russian ballads, the gospel-based music of the Civil Rights-era, show tunes, pop songs. There was the ballet repertoire, and a lot of opera in Vienna. An obsession with Fred Astaire led to a deep appreciation for the songs of the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Johnny Mercer. She didn’t hear country music until a friend from Texas played her Loretta Lynn in college. She loved the musical and narrative simplicity of those songs and found them strongly affecting and inspiring. ""It was the first kind of music I heard that I could figure out how to write. And there were only three chords.""