CATIE CURTIS - Live in Concert May 30, 2008

Tickets $23.00

“Singer/songwriter Catie gives a warm, fame worthy performance.” (John Ziegler, Duluth News Tribune)
Curtis' style is rootsy and folky but with the rhythmic undercurrent of pop/rock music. Curtis is known for her compelling melodies, relaxed grooves, and subject matter ranging from philosophical to political, romantic to maternal. She performed on the Lilith Fair Tour, and tours now full-time in the US and Europe to a fanbase that has been built over years of returning to the folk clubs and theaters that are the foundation of the acoustic music scene. Her songs have appeared on TV shows from Grey's Anatomy to Alias, and in many films including the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen movie "Our Lips Are Sealed." Catie Curtis just wanted to play the drums. She got her first kit when she turned 12. At age 15, she was hired to play drums for a musical theater production at the amusement park in her hometown of Saco, Maine. The production manager of the show gave Curtis her first guitar saying, "I will give you this if you promise me you'll learn to play it." Curtis taught herself to play and write songs by listening to singer/songwriters like the quirky "Melanie," Karla Bonoff and the quietly philosophical Cat Stevens. Later, she learned about the grassroots folk scene while attending Brown University. Friends took her to concerts at the Stone Soup Coffeehouse, introducing her to "under the radar" artists like Cheryl Wheeler and Greg Brown. Curtis gravitated toward the solo acoustic guitar, lyric-driven music, and the sometimes comedic exchange between performer and audience. After graduation and a short stint as a social worker in Boston, Curtis was signed to EMI/Guardian Records in 1996 and has gone on to release 10 CDs to date. Pete Seeger says of Woody Guthrie: "Any fool can be complicated; it takes a real genius to be simple." There should be a corollary for today's folk-popsters: Any fool can write a love-gone wrong song; it takes a real genius to write a love-gone-right one. No urban songwriter does that better than Curtis. On her hushed and deeply felt new CD, "Long Night Moon," she sings grippingly about love's better moments: tracing the shadows on a lover's face, and the sweet delights of staying warm on a cold day. Like Guthrie, she is fearless about using simple imagery to draw us in: a night sky full of fireflies, or "headlights crossing my bedroom wall." Also like Guthrie, she can fine-focus political complexities into a stark, telling couplet: "If they can keep us fighting about marriage and God/ There'll be no one left to notice if our leaders do their jobs." (Scott Alarik, Boston Globe) (www.catiecurtis.com)

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