Catherine Britt
Catherine Britt has come a long way. No longer the innocent teenage girl - who won the praise of Elton John after discovering her during a tour of Australia in 2002 - she's now an accomplished and mature singer-songwriter. Six years on, this stunning Newcastle-born woman is living an amazing life in both the US and Australia. Catherine has toured, performed and recorded with some of country music's biggest names and has recorded music with some of Nashville's finest producers, including Grammy-nominated producer Brett Beavers who produced her latest album, Little Wildflower. Catherine's musical talent stems from an upbringing constantly filled with music. “There's a song I wrote on my second album called Too Far Gone, that starts out with the lines, 'I know there's music playing/I can hear it in my head/I can see you lying on your bed,” says Catherine. “That's my Dad, and that's my image of home - music blasting, and it was anything you can imagine. You'd walk in sometimes and there'd be African music playing; or the Beatles; or Hank Williams. I heard everything; I was exposed to a lot of great music growing up. But Dad's favorite style of music was country, so we heard a lot of country music around the house - some Australian, but mainly American country. “So I was singing all the time growing up, but it never really hit me until I was about nine. I had heard Dolly Parton when I was younger, but that's when it really hit me. It went into my head rather than through it, and I thought, oh, my gosh, that is amazing. And then I wanted to be her. And it kind of went from there - I found Loretta Lynn, and then I found Hank Williams, and now he's my all-time favorite singer/songwriter.” With models like Parton, Lynn and Williams, it was inevitable that Catherine would begin writing her own songs - although, she says, she wasn't always sure what they were about. “It came naturally, I guess. I just started writing because everybody wrote. Hank wrote, and I wanted to do everything by what he did. So I began writing these songs about drinking, cheating, and all these things that country music is supposed to be about - but I hadn't been through them yet. I don't even know where I got them from!” |