A few weeks back, we (The Alabama Stills), answered a Facebook post in one of the local music groups by a singer songwriter called Kate Harding. She was releasing her first single, a beautiful country song called “Wallflower” on April 5th, and she was after some musicians to play her single with her at her launch party.
Co-incidentally, we’d been thinking about ways to extend the band’s range, in terms of diversity of music, dynamic and style. Working with a female vocalist was a concept we had already decided might fit the bill, so when James spotted Kate’s post we thought we’d see if there was an opportunity to help each other out.
We arranged a meetup. Kate arrived dressed like a country music professional, James was dressed perfectly normally for an afternoon off. I, on the other hand, I quite clearly remember, was dressed like a geography teacher who’d fallen through a hedge backwards on a school field trip. I suppose it’s the walking thing, it’s one of my looks… anyway… This notwithstanding, rehearsals were set, and songs were chosen, but obviously with the main focus on playing Kate’s single, as the release date was only a few weeks away.
Well those few weeks went pretty quickly, and last Friday night at Casemates Studio in Hilsea, we played an hour set of covers, followed by Kate’s single… and it was a really nice evening. There was a bit of food, a craft beer created by the Powder Monkey Brewery in Gosport to celebrate the release, and some Country Karaoke.
Kate wrote ‘Wallflower’ about twenty years ago, and after life getting in the way a bit as it so often does, ultimately started a crowd funding project to get the song recorded. She then arranged for the track to be mixed and produced over in Nashville. Saying that in two sentences makes it sound simple. I’m pretty sure it was anything but. ‘Wallflower’ had its first play during the ‘BBC Introducing' show on BBC Radio Solent last Thursday, and you can now find it on Spotify and Amazon Music.
We’re looking forward to working more with Kate in the future, hoping that she’ll be able to join us for some Stills gigs this year - watch this space!
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