Member Since: 2/10/2007
Band Website: http://katefagan.com
Influences: ...this old world & all its things like rivers or birds or clouds or today the Carter Family Ruby Hunter Anne Briggs Nick Drake Lucinda Williams Maria Callas The Band Karen Dalton Natalie Merchant Bob Dylan chapter four of Chronicles Elizabeth Cotten Nick Cave Joni Mitchell Will Oldham Palace Neil Young Dead Man Gillian Welch Kate & Anna McGarrigle Richard Thompson Nic Jones Peggy Seeger Tom Waits Sam Beam Festival Express Lloyd Cole Davy Graham Ali Farka Toure & Radio Mali JSBach CSNY Odetta Pete Seeger Chrissie Hynde Emmy Lou Harris Fred Neil George Oppen Jody Stecher Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music Six Organs of Admittance Ry Cooder Treachery Head autumn anywhere Roscoe Holcomb Dock Boggs a hundred banjos Townes Van Zandt Bill Callahan Linda Ronstadt Emily Dickinson Pete Minter & Empty Texas killdeer Kathmandu Warumpi Band tea Wong Ka Wai Steve Earle Arkadii Dragomoschenko parkour & the art of displacement The Last Poets Terry Riley Kelly Joe Phelps Johnny Cash Bill Monroe Janis Joplin Reckoning Led Zeppelin Morning of the Earth Gram Parsons Louvin Brothers Kings of the Wild Frontier Misery is a Butterfly Ralph Stanley Calexico PJ Harvey Martin Carthy Rosalie Gascoigne Mark Rothko mountains pianolas celadon green and that crazy feel when the first drops of a late afternoon storm hit the dust...
Sounds Like: "Kate's music hovers between country and folk (think Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter) and her lyrics are lucid, emotionally persuasive and evocative. Her palette of musical styles ranges from touching ballads such as Highway of Rainbows and through the backwoods folkiness of One More Drive and Dollar Bills and Diamond Towns to songs such as Roll You Sweet Rain, which sounds as though it is part of some ancient folk tradition. And, well, Clear Water sounds like a song Joni Mitchell forgot to add to one of her early albums. Seriously, Diamond Wheel is that good. Welcome to a major new Australian talent."
Bruce Elder, Sydney Morning Herald
"Kate Fagan has managed to discover a niche somewhere between older folk forms and a more impressionistic poetic language that sits musically and lyrically somewhere between Lucy Kaplansky, Natalie Merchant, Suzanne Vega and early Joni Mitchell."
Country Update
"Diamond Wheel compares favourably to the work of fellow indie roots singer-songwriters Natalie Merchant and Gillian Welch."
Drum Media
"The songs have real tunes with subtle melodic hooks and lyrics full of evocative imagery, all sung with that rare skill of the great folk singer of being totally involved in the song."
Canberra Times
"Kate Fagan will be worth following for the next decade or two."
Bernard Zuel, Sydney Morning Herald
Diamond Wheel reviewed by Peggy Seeger
What a treat, an album made by a poet who is a musician - or alternatively a musician who is a poet. Steeped in folk music all her life, Kate Fagan is coming into her own on her first album, Diamond Wheel. Her high range is now delicate now commanding, her low range glowing and precise. She is musically literate and the songs are very singable, the accompaniments excellent. The melodies are memorable and varied. She combines her education in literature with her knowledge of folksong, giving not only a solidity but a fanciful creativity that makes you listen to every line:
There's a story for every road / And a riddle for every rhyme / Every high mountain once was a cold sea, / Shall I go your way or will you go mine?
The texts are sometimes straightforward, sometimes almost mystical. Kate the Poet expects you to fill in the holes in the logic that lead you from the beginning to the end of the song. Kate the Musician provides variety: one or two songs are bleak and harsh (O Janey Janey), others begin solo and draw you in as the harmonies develop. Then there's the plain old passionate love song: 'Love me now, love me now'... 'my door is open' - and she wants the key to yours. A thoroughly adult album, where the music speaks for itself and the singer is content to facilitate. These songs have been carefully crafted - no filler lines or easy get-out endless repetitions of the same words. The album held me from beginning to end. Only twelve tracks - and then you put track 1 on again and go with her down her 'highway of rainbows'.
Peggy Seeger
Asheville, NC
Record Label: Evening's Empire
Type of Label: Indie