PATTY LARKIN
bird in a cage
PATTY LARKIN is a visionary of sound and wonder, a real deal version of artistry made of equal parts guitar wizardry, vocals shot through with soul and inventive lyrics that ripple across the terrain of the heart. Described as “riveting” (Chicago Tribune), “hypnotic” (Entertainment Weekly), and a “drop-dead brilliant” performer (Performing Songwriter), Patty has captured audiences for over 30 years with an imagination, enchantment, and technical artistry that has redefined the boundaries of the guitar driven singer songwriter.
With eleven studio albums and two live recordings under her belt, Patty mines the intersections of poetry and song with her innovative 14th release, Bird in a Cage, released on her own Road Narrows Records. Bird in a Cage puts poems from ten notable poets to song, including US Poet Laureates William Carlos Williams, Stanley Kunitz, Kay Ryan, Robert Pinsky and Billy Collins, for a new and haunting collection that pulses with the magic of lyricism. Poems are made to be shared aloud, and with Bird, Patty takes up that tradition and sets it aglow: her extraordinary musical shadings make each poem a star.
Bird in a Cage grew out of her songwriting practice. As Patty describes it, “Over the years I began my writing days by reading my favorite poets just to be amazed and inspired. I looked to poetry as I look at nature: with awe. This morning ritual evolved into a desire to make music of some of my favorite poems. The rhythm and cadence of the lines felt new and fresh to me, the melody slowly revealing itself. And uncovering a melody that is slowly revealed by the words was pure joy.”
This new album leaves standard songwriting forms behind, crossing instead into a world where rhyme is optional and phrases unfold at their own speed. Bird in a Cage embraces those creative spaces where boundaries are fluid; its ten tracks are full of cross-disciplinary energy, the hot spark of one artist collaborating with another. The album’s liner notes say it best with this reflection from Patty on Bird’s genesis: “This project is my way of holding brilliance in my hand.”
THE POETS:
William Carlos Williams
May Sarton
Stanley Kunitz
Nick Flynn
Kay Ryan
Robert Pinsky
Marie Howe
Natalie Diaz
Kelle Groom
Billy Collins
Bird was co-produced by Patty and Mike Denneen, who Patty has called her “musical compass.” Their collaboration spanned 16 years and 5 albums. Mike, whose work as a record producer was nothing short of genius (Aimee Mann, Howie Day, Jen Trynin, Letters To Cleo), passed away in July of 2018, just shy of Bird’s completion. For Bird in a Cage, Mike created a lush sonic landscape, playing vintage keyboards on several tracks. Patty and Mike’s shared vision for an album with layered, atmospheric sound was secured with backup support from friends Jonatha Brooke (vocals and guitar), Merrie Amsterburg (vocals) and Marc Schulman (electric guitar), and strings by Catherine Bent (cello) and the Parkington Sisters (violin, viola, vocals). Patty’s long-time drummer and percussionist, Ben Wittman, kicks up the mix on the last track, an inspired version of Billy Collins’ “Introduction to Poetry.”
Patty’s recent projects include Still Green, an album written in a dune shack on the Outer Banks of Cape Cod’s National Seashore, and 25, a retrospective album that includes the contributions of 25 friends, among them Grammy award winners Rosanne Cash, Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, and Janis Ian, as well as acclaimed singer songwriters Bruce Cockburn, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Greg Brown, among others. Patty was the Executive Producer of the groundbreaking La Guitara, a compilation of women guitarists actively changing preconceptions about gender and guitar heroes.
Patty was raised in the Midwest, and is a descendant of a long line of Irish American singers and taletellers. Her mother was a painter, and her sisters are both musicians. She studied English Literature and Folklore in the Pacific Northwest, as well as jazz guitar and voice at the Berklee College of Music. While in Boston, Patty honed her performance chops in listening rooms, clubs, and festivals.
Her songs have been covered by various artists including Cher and Holly Cole and have been featured in television and film including Evolution (DreamWorks); Random Hearts (Columbia Pictures); Sliding Doors (Miramax); and Men in Trees. With 11 Boston Music Awards to her credit, Patty is also the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music and she has been honored by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino for her music and philanthropy. She lives with her family on Cape Cod.
Project
An Opening Statement by Patty Larkin
The goal of this project is to better define the contribution of women to the history of modern guitar. I have been asked repeatedly, "Why are there no great female guitar players?" The answer is, there are. Demographics are changing as young girls and women take up the instrument with increasing dedication and commitment to technique and repertoire. It is my belief that women guitarists of the past played a part in the evolution of the instrument and that their story is largely untold. I also believe that there are women guitarists today who are actively changing our preconceptions about gender and guitar heroes. This project is dedicated to these artists, past and present, waiting to be discovered, needing to be heard.
More On The Music
The CD is a snapshot of an ever-changing landscape. It is a glimpse of how women have influenced the guitar over time. An aural image in the feminine form. The women on this compilation are innovators and educators, alt types and concert hall performers, jazzers, blues players, composers and interpreters. They have been around for a long time, they just broke onto the scene, they are our archetypes and our future heroines. They are only the tip of the iceberg. To say that our research led us to hundreds of women players of the instrument would not be an exaggeration. We had the unenviable task of selecting from talent too numerous to mention, but too amazing to overlook. We ended up choosing the music and the stories and the history for what we now consider to be the first installment of La Guitara. Rather than marginalizing women guitar players or creating a circus oddity, our goal is to expose some of the most prodigious guitar talent that happens to also be female. As we began to research women and the guitar and the history of the instrument, we made a decision to create a collection of women instrumentalists from many different musical styles, and from many places around the world, including archival selections, to tell the story.
So, there's Sharon Isbin beginning classical guitar studies at age 9, studying with the masters, including the revered Andrés Segovia. There's Mimi Fox playing folk guitar when something shifts in an instant and she falls in love with jazz and never looks back. There's Kaki King playing drums throughout childhood and then returning to the harmonic pull and the percussive potential of six strings. There's Rory Block sitting in her dad's sandal shop in Greenwich Village in the 60s absorbing all of the nuances of a revived American folk music as John Sebastian and Geoff Muldaur trade songs. There's Wu Man, whose musical journey on the pipa spans centuries, breaking the sound barrier between ancient and modern. There's Muriel Anderson whose fingerstyle renderings and depth of repertoire tell of years of concentrated study and a passion for music that has no borders. There's Badi Assad, who decided to devote her life to the instrument and ended up creating her own genre of Brazilian music that includes voice, percussion and flights of fancy. There's Vicki Genfan, whose jazz and classical studies took her to a place where she composes music that encompasses the soul and lyrical beauty of the source. There's Ellen McIlwaine who grew up in Japan and then returned to the States as a teen and wondered why no one else heard the world music she heard humming in her head. There's Elizabeth Cotten, who could hear a tune once and play it, writing "Freight Train" as an adolescent, giving up the guitar only to return some 40 years later while working for the Seeger family who "discovered" her unique fingerstyle technique. There's Canadian Alex Houghton who started on classical and progressed to funk, combining her previous studies with her love of Prince. And there's Jennifer Batten, who wowed them on the Michael Jackson "Bad" tour, playing with inspired rock 'n' roll brilliance before 1.5 billion people during the Super Bowl halftime, who had looked for role models as a young player and ended up becoming one herself. And then there's Memphis Minnie, of whom it has been said "the novelty of a guitar toting woman blues singer was soon replaced with respect for her abilities as a musician" (Neil Slaven).
To say that Fernando Sor begat Kaki King takes a huge leap of faith. But that's what I'm asking you to do. Come with me. Who knew that Rossini and his wife both played guitar? Why were there so many artistic renderings done of women playing parlor and harp guitars in the centuries before the last one, yet there were so few women who actually played? Or did they? This much I know: It's So Over. This - "There are no girls/women/chicks (god help us) who play guitar." This - "Why are there no great female rock guitar players? Must be genetic." This is the eye opener, the Maiden Voyage, a glimpse at what's already been going on behind those not so closed doors. The sampler. The collection. Whatever you want to call it. There is more to come. Begin here. La Guitara, Volume One.
PATTY LARKIN/On the Outer Cape/August, 2005
The Artists
Wu Man
The renowned pipa (pronounced pee pah) virtuoso, Wu Man, has been cited by the LA Times as 'the artist most responsible for bringing the pipa to the Western World.' She is internationally recognized as an extraordinary exponent of traditional Chinese repertoire and as a leading interpreter of contemporary pipa music. She performs works from composers such as Terry Riley, Philip Glass, and Lou Harrison, among others, and has collaborated with distinguished artists including Yo-Yo Ma and the Kronos Quartet. She has performed with many of the world's great orchestras and at many music centers worldwide, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and at the White House alongside Yo-Yo Ma, with whom she performs in "The Silk Road Project." wumanpipa.org
Sharon Isbin
Internationally acclaimed for her extraordinary lyricism, technique and versatility, Grammy Award-winner Sharon Isbin has been hailed as 'the preeminent guitarist of our time.' Her 25 recordings reveal remarkable technique and versatility - including baroque, Spanish/Latin, 20th Century cross-over and jazz fusion - and have garnered accolades from around the globe. Her Dreams of a World earned her a 2001 Grammy Award, making her the first classical guitarist to receive a Grammy in 28 years. Her widely praised recording with the New York Philharmonic of concerti by Rodrigo, Ponce and Villa-Lobos has been a Billboard Top 10 Classical bestseller and received a 2005 Latin Grammy nomination for "Best Classical Album." This is the first-ever recording in the history of the New York Philharmonic with a guitarist. The breadth and depth of her repertoire is astounding, her performances illuminating. She is a gifted and inspired performer who is not to be missed. sharonisbin.com
Patty Larkin
Patty is that rare combination of talents - a superlative singer, an accomplished songwriter and an exquisitely inventive guitarist. Guitar World calls her "genre-stretching, string-popping alterna-folk." As an instrumentalist, she skillfully and effortlessly mixes celtic, rock, folk, blues and funk. She is a musical sorceress whose creativity and comfort level in the studio includes loops, effects and other digital wizardry commonly found in all sorts of contemporary music, but rarely among the acoustically inclined. A favorite with critics over her 10-CD history, she has honed a reputation as a 'musician's musician' and is that unique level of artistic sophistication that transcends borders and redefines genres.pattylarkin.com
Memphis Minnie
Tracking down the seminal woman blues guitar hero is challenging because women blues singers seldom recorded as guitar players. The notable exception was Memphis Minnie (1897-1973) who recorded over 200 sides during the 1930s and '40s. Born in Walls, Mississippi, Memphis Minnie settled in Memphis in the '20s where she married guitar player Joe McCoy (Kansas Joe) and subsequently landed a record deal with Columbia. Her recordings guide us through the evolution of recorded blues as her life and music moved from the Mississippi Delta to urban Chicago. There, reigning blues king Big Bill Broonzy recalls her beating both him and Tampa Red in a guitar contest and claims she was the best guitarist he ever heard. She was one of the first blues players to use a National guitar in 1929 and to play an electric wood-bodied National and various other electric guitars in the '40s and '50s.
Mimi Fox
Mimi Fox is "jazz guitar at its best" (Just Jazz Guitar). Fleet fingered on both steel string (acoustic) and hollow body jazz guitars, Mimi Fox is a fiery virtuoso who has performed solo as well with fellow jazz greats Charlie Byrd, Charlie Hunter, and Grammy award-winner David Sanchez, among countless others. With her two most recent releases, Standards and She's The Woman, Mimi maintains a whirlwind touring schedule and is a favorite among fans and critics alike. She is both a respected educator and performer. Regarding technique, Guitar Player magazine calls her, "A prodigious talent who has not only mastered the traditional forms, but has managed to reinvent them." mimifoxjazzguitar.com
Kaki King
Kaki King "is the most striking young musician to emerge in decades" (LA Times). Her unique style is a rare combination of percussion, composition and technique - all played with fire that comes from thinking outside the box. In 2003, she released her acclaimed Velour debut Everybody Loves You and was then signed to Epic Records. In 2004 she released Legs To Make Us Longer, catapulting her into the national arena with rave reviews and an appearance on Letterman. Kaki crafts beautiful and quirky compositions that transport the listener off the map. At 25, she has been sent to wake up anyone with a preconceived notion of what one woman and one guitar can do. kakiking.com
Ellen McIlwaine
"You've got attitude." Those were the parting words of Ellen's ex-manager right after she fired him for telling her that including Jimi Hendrix in her band was a bad idea because he was black. A groundbreaking artist of the '70s, she is probably the only guitar player in the world who has played with Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter, Taj Mahal and Jack Bruce. Long known as one of the world's great slide players, Ellen McIlwaine's music is based in the blues. But hers is a gutsy brand of blues, based on tradition but drawing on influences as far east as Egypt, India and Japan and as close to home as R&B. Influential and highly spirited, she is revered worldwide by guitarists and songwriters alike. With 10 recordings under her belt, she continues to blaze trails with slide guitar in hand across North America and abroad.
Badi Assad
Tom Jobin once said it seems that Brazilians were born with a guitar in their arms. Badi Assad (pronounced bah-JEE ah-SAHJ) epitomizes this innate musical sensibility. Throughout the 90s, Badi's music - featuring classical guitar, percussion and vocals - paid homage to the music traditions of her home country while extending them in new and unprecedented directions. Today - and six CDs later - her body of work explores everything from interpretations of traditional Brazilian guitar to world beat-influenced originals to neoclassical compositions. In concert, she simultaneously plays guitar and percussion while singing and doing vocal improvisations. The result: an unabashedly powerful one-woman ensemble that defies categorization.
Alex Houghton
Alex Houghton was a late comer to the instrument. She picked up her first guitar in her mid-teens, strummed a few chords and stopped playing until her early twenties when she began to play in earnest. A native of Ottawa, Canada, Houghton studied composition at Carleton and Ottawa Universities. A keen fingerstyle player, she soon expanded her repertoire and now utilizes numerous alternative tunings and techniques in her compositions. As witnessed by her composition, "The Bear," she has a fearless approach to the instrument and a creative and adventurous spirit that, after three CDs and a fourth to be released this year, still seems limitless.
Vicki Genfan
Vicki Genfan is a fiercely original musician, singer, composer. "Her dazzling display of two handed tapping, bell-like harmonics and funky bass note slapping along with her deft fingerstyle approach, have guitar aficionados sitting slack-jawed in sheer awe" (Acoustic Guitar). Transmuting jazz, funk and world music in a contemporary folk alchemy, Vicki draws from a diverse palette of harmonies, rhythms and modal tunings. Studied in both classical and jazz guitar, she has been featured on numerous recordings, radio and television. Vicki performs extensively to an ever-growing audience. A native New Yorker, she has been touring internationally in support of her two CDs - Outside The Box and Vicki Genfan-Live. vickigenfan.com
Muriel Anderson
Widely regarded as "one of the world's best, and most versatile guitar instrumentalists" (Chicago Tribune), Muriel Anderson is the first woman to have won the National Fingerpicking Guitar Championship. Her unique approach to the instrument virtually transforms the guitar into a lyrical choir, a marching band, Japanese koto, bluegrass band, and then a flamenco dance. Her compositions include commissioned classical works and her Heartstrings recording traveled as far as outer space, accompanying astronauts on their mission. Muriel has released seven CDs, hosts the renowned Muriel Anderson's All Star Guitar Night® and is the founder of the Music For Life Alliance/Music for Lifelong Achievement charities. As one of the country's foremost fingerstyle guitarists, her playing is revered by guitarists worldwide. murielanderson.com
Rory Block
The Blues Foundation describes Rory Block as being "... widely regarded as the top female interpreter and authority on country blues worldwide." A lifelong purveyor of the great Delta blues, she is a songwriter and slide guitarist par excellence. A native of Manhattan, she left home at the age of 15 and headed south where she learned her blues trade at the feet of Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, and Son House, her greatest influence. She tours constantly in support of her numerous recordings. She has accumulated a wealth of accolades, including four WC Handy Awards - two for Traditional Blues Female Artist of the Year, and two for Acoustic Blues Album of the Year. She has also won NAIRD awards in 1992, '94, and '97. In her hands, traditional is timeless. roryblock.com
Jennifer Batten
The buzz on Jennifer Batten rose from the guitar underground, enticing guitar magazines to track her down and chronicle her savvy musicianship and highly original approach to electric guitar. A pioneer and innovator of the "two-handed tapping method," Batten’s music encompasses rock, heavy metal, jazz, blues and fusion. In 1987 she was selected from over 100 guitarists to play in Michael Jackson's "Bad Tour" which traveled the world performing to over 4.5 million people. In the years that followed, she joined him on two additional tours and performed at the 1997 Super Bowl halftime that aired to the largest audience in television history (1.5 billion). In her own right, Batten has recorded two innovative releases. She additionally tours and records with Jeff Beck and looks forward to a new solo release in 2005. jenniferbatten.com
Elizabeth Cotten
Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten (1895-1987) was among the most influential guitarists to surface during the roots music revival era in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Cotten was born in 1895 near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. As a child, she picked up a guitar, laying it flat out on her lap, and, over time, developed a picking pattern and eventually chording. A domestic by trade, Cotten did not record until 1957, a few years after the Seeger family (her employer) learned of her extraordinary guitar skills. Her recording debut came out on Folkways in 1958 and included her folk classic "Freight Train," which she wrote when she was a child. Festivals and tours followed in the subsequent decades. During the final years of her life, Elizabeth Cotten received a National Endowment of the Arts National Heritage Fellowship Award and a Grammy.
Quotes
FROM THE PRESS:
INTERNATIONAL CAST FEATURES 14 STANDOUT PLAYERS
Guitar Goddesses. Patty Larkin brings together some of the best women players in the world. Boston Globe
FLAWLESS
Patty Larkin and other pickers shine on La Guitara... an anthology of 14 brilliant guitar performances by women.Washington Post
A TRIUMPH
La Guitara showcases a sampling of the world's finest women guitar players. Each guitarist on this album is a respected musician. Every track is a triumph and a validation of female guitarists everywhere. Celebrity
UNIQUE APPEAL
Guided by an overiding intelligence....La Guitara successfully delivers the wide spectrum of great female players on a well-crafted silver platter. Guitarists combine superhuman physical technique with a novel rhythmic and melodic musical structure to create arresting music. Vintage Guitar
TOP 10 - 2005
Philadelphia City Paper
AMBITIOUS & GENEROUS
It's also a stunningly kick ass record. Bay Windows
EMPOWERING: LA GUITAR COMPANION TOUR
Folk-guitar-smashing Larkin, nimbled-fingered Kaki King, National Guitar Championship winner Muriel Anderson and jazz bright Mimi Fox. Philadelphia Daily News
LA GUITARA TOP 10 - 2005
Boston Globe
AMBITIOUS & GENEROUS
La Guitara proves that there are amazing women guitar players, both past and present. Baltimore Style
OUTSTANDING
A veritable smorgasbord of tasty, sassy, sweet and raw playing from some of the best in the world, period. MINOR 7TH
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Wu Man
"The artist most responsible for bringing the pipa to the western world." LA Times
Sharon Isbin
"The preeminent guitarist of our time." Boston Magazine
Patty Larkin
"Genre-stretching string popping alterna-folk." Guitar World
Memphis Minnie
"Her records guide us through the evolution of recorded blues...from the Mississippi Delta to urban Chicago. Her guitar playing embodies the best of the blues: it takes a simple form and makes each iteration fresh and inventive." Acoustic Guitar
Mimi Fox
"Jazz guitar at its best." Just Jazz Guitar
Kaki King
"The most striking young musician to emerge in decades. The acoustic guitar instrumentalist and composer alternates between hard percussive flailing and banging (literally using her axe as a drum) and the fleetest, most fluid right and left-hand fingers." LA Times
Ellen McIlwaine
"Herewith a list of the three greatest women slide players in the Universe: 1. Ellen McIlwaine, 2. Ellen McIlwaine, 3. Ellen McIlwaine." Toronto Globe
Badi Assad
"She plays a battery of percussion instruments while simultaneously playing guitar and using her voice, to add a sultry melodic line, scatlike improvisations and mouth percussion. A powerful, jazzy, and sensuous one-woman ensemble." Acoustic Guitar
Alex Houghton
"Her fearless attitude is reflected in the music." Ottawa Citizen
Vicki Genfan
"Her dazzling display of two handed tapping, bell-like harmonics and funky bassnote slapping along with her deft fingerstyle approach have guitar aficionados sitting slack-jawed in sheer awe." Acoustic Guitar
Muriel Anderson
"One of the world's best, and most versatile guitar instrumentalists." Chicago Tribune
Rory Block
"Widely regarded as the top female interpreter and authority on country blues worldwide." The Blues Foundation
Jennifer Batten
"An amazing guitarist, regardless of gender - Batten rivals Hendrix, Van Halen. She has squeaks and squawks and honks and roars and a whole library of other strange sounds. She has licks that scorch the rhythms. And she has guts." Miami Herald
Elizabeth Cotten
"Among the most influential guitarists to surface during the roots music revival era, her wonderfully expressive and dexterous finger-picking style a major inspiration to the generations of players who followed in her wake." Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
The Tour
Patty Larkin, Muriel Anderson, and Mimi Fox
26 May 2006: Strawberry Festival, Camp Mather, CA
6 August 2006: Newport Folk Festival, Newport, RI
PAC tour - featuring Patty Larkin, Badi Assad and Ellen McIlwaine
8 March 2007: Phelps-Stokes Auditorium, Berea, KY
9 March 2007: Alberta Bair Theater 406-256-6052, Billings, MT
10 March 2007: WYO Theater 307-672-9084, Sheridan, WY
11 March 2007: Carriage House 408-961-5858, Saratoga, CA
22 March 2007: The Ark 734-761-1800, Ann Arbor, MI
23 March 2007: Quick Center for the Arts 203-254-4010, Fairfield, CT
24 March 2007: Rosenberger Auditorium/Halbritter Center 877-JUNIATA, Huntington, PA
Contacts
Label: Vanguard Records (310) 829-9355, www.vanguardrecords.com/laguitara
Lellie Capwell, Lellie@vanguardrecords.com
www.vanguardrecords.com/publicity
Project Manager: Bette Warner, Lamartine Productions (508) 349-2364, lamartine2@aol.com
Tour Direction: Jeff Laramie, SRO Artists (608) 664-8160, jlaramie@sroartists.com
www.sroartists.com/artists/laguitara
Benefit
Supporting Acts
Resources and links
- WMVY Radio interview with Patty Larkin, Mimi Fox, and Muriel Anderson
- Interview with Patty Larkin, Kaki King, Muriel Anderson and Mimi Fox in Acoustic Guitar magazine: La Femme Guitara (pdf)
- Acoustic Guitar magazine ad promoting La Guitara (pdf)
- Check out La Guitara on MySpace.com
Press Materials
Thumbnails link to high res versions of these images. All photos by Jana Leon.
For more information:
Management Consultant
Bette Warner/Lamartine Productions
PO Box 662
Wellfleet, MA 02667
phone/fax: 508-246-9029
lamartine2@aol.com
web: webmaster@pattylarkin.com
Tour Direction/Booking Agency
Northstar Artists
phone: 763-999-7700
e-mail:
Bill Marquardt, agent
bill@nstarartists.com
Jeff Laramie, agent
jeff@nstarartists.com