'Sophisticated mix of folk, jazz, pop and rustica with intelligent lyrics’ The INDEPENDENT, Bluebird review, Dec 2005
‘Strikingly original’ UNCUT, ‘Bluebird’ review, Dec 2005
‘KTB has honeyed rivers and mothering embraces for a voice. KTB has a mournful-joyful tunefulness rising so effortlessly from violin, cello and bongos that it seems more natural than breathing.’ Plan B Magazine, review of KTB Collective Truck Festival performance, September 2006
KTB (aka Katy Bennett) has been writing songs about elephants, vegetarianism and unrequited love since the age of 12. She released her critically acclaimed debut album
‘All Calm In Dreamland’ in 2002 <[b>‘Gentle acoustics from the Nick Drake school… literate songs’ UNCUT, Jan 2003] and, later that same year, was a finalist at the BBC Young Folk Awards. .
Her second album,
‘Bluebird’, was recorded in and around a portacabin studio on a farm in rural Oxfordshire between the summer of 2004 and the spring of 2005 with her brother Joe (of the band Goldrush) producing. Its beautiful, heart-wrenching eleven and a half songs deal with those universal emotions of love, loss, despair, friendship and hope.
Under the influence of such great writers and interpreters of songs as Dory Previn, Patsy Cline, Gillian Welch, Kathryn Williams and Jolie Holland, Katy sings and plays guitar and piano in a country/jazz/folk/oddball pop style (if you feel the need to pigeon-hole), while her sparse arrangements are subtly augmented by guitars, bongos, cello, violin and the occasional bass and drum kit.
Katy has toured the UK extensively over the past few years, including support slots with Karine Polwart, Eliza Carthy, Erin Mckeown, Vashti Bunyan, Jim Moray, and KT Tunstall and 2 co-headline tours with Canadians Gabe & Ruth Minnikin (ex-The Guthries) and Rachael Dadd (of Whalebone Polly). Katy’s festival appearances have included Truck, Priddy, Oxford, Salisbury Live and South by Southwest 2004 in Austin, Texas.
She performs solo, as a duo (with guitarist Phill Ward) and with her band, The KTB Collective (ranging in size from three to sixteen depending on the occasion). Katy also leads music and singing workshops for children and adults in and around Birmingham as well as at festivals all over the UK (including Green Man and Stainsby)
In 2006, KTB’s professional singing career took a fruitful albeit unexpected detour when she was engaged by the RSC to sing (in Sicilian) for their production of Romeo & Juliet in Stratford-Upon-Avon as part of The Complete Works’ Festival season. So who knows what’s to come for the versatile Miss KTB
For bookings, contact Edmund Bennett: [email protected]
