专辑简介

Born in Lafayette, Louisiana, New Orleans-based Beth Patterson gathers musical influences like she’s cooking up a simmering pot of particularly spicy gumbo to share with her audiences. Her travels to Ireland and her ethnomusicology studies at University College Cork, sharpened her palette for music from all over, and listeners can now feast on the sonic flavors of Celtic, West African, Indian, Balkan, and Indonesian music, with a dash of her youthful progressive rock leanings here and there.

Beth began her musical career as a classical oboist and Cajun bass player in her early teens, but the Irish bouzoukis, eight- and ten-stringed adaptations of the traditional Greek instrument, are her true weapons of choice. Audiences practically have to duck from sparks when the strumming gets fierce, and barrooms have been known to fall silent as listeners squint for the extra hands you’ll swear she uses to conjure her dynamic melodies. Like all spells, her enchantments take many forms. Along with the mythic, elemental imagery that courses through her own songwriting, Patterson might sing a haunting traditional ballad, or rope you in with a raunchy number, adding her own jokes with a sense of humor that makes even New Orleans bartenders blush. She’s worked this magic in over a dozen countries to date, ultimately dubbing her eclectic style SWAP (Songwriter World Acoustic Progressive).

In addition to her live performances, Patterson’s six solo albums have garnered airplay all over the US as well as Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan. She’s appeared on over 100 recordings, including the nationally-charting Change of Habit by her former band The Poor Clares. Soundtrack appearances include the motion picture The One-Eyed King (starring William Baldwin and Armand Assante), and Mike Judge's Miramax release Extract. Over 80 of her original compositions have been recorded, either by herself or by various artists across the US, France, Ireland, and New Zealand. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Music Therapy from Loyola University, New Orleans, but believes that true collective healing will only be achieved when audiences stop requesting “Free Bird.” She’s recently expanded out from the performance arena and onto the page: Mongrels and Misfits, forthcoming from Dark Star Books, is a collection of Patterson’s lyrics, poetry, and her supernatural short story, “Tracking.” Her prose crackles with the humor, sensuality, and mysticism that make her songwriting stand out, along with a range of emotions that promise to resonate with the reader like an adeptly-plucked tune.