I first heard Kathryn
Scheldt sing in a little oak-shaded chapel in Mobile, Alabama, the late
autumn sun slanting through the windows, as she sang of hope and mercy
and despair. There was a power in the lyrics that seemed inseparable
from the strength of her voice – a rich contralto that was different
from anything I had heard. This was 2005, just a few weeks after
Hurricane Katrina, and in her anthem of hope that particular morning,
Kathryn was wrapping the heartache we could see all around us in the
sacred compassion that came with her faith.
That song was, for me,
the most powerful song on a powerful album called Gettin’ Ready,
Kathryn’s first as a solo artist. I was honored when she asked me to
write the liner notes, and honored again to make a minor contribution
to two of the songs on her next CD, In the Middle of It All. Then in
February of 2009, Kathryn came to me with a song called “Southern
Girl,” and I saw immediately that it could be the centerpiece of her
next album. We began to write a few songs together, and as the junior
partner in that undertaking, I was impressed with her sense of a
woman’s journey. There were no victims in her musical stories, no
traces of self-pity, just a sexy, head-on embrace of life in all its
possibility and hope.
The CD that resulted is one of the finest
Americana albums in recent years, produced with an all-star cast of
musicians who understand what Kathryn’s songs are about. There is
plenty more to come from this classically trained musician and
educator, turned solo artist, and American music will be the richer for
it.
Frye Gaillard
Writer in residence, University of South Alabama
Kathryn
Scheldt, who grew up in Camden, SC, studied classical guitar under
Grammy Award winning artist David Russell, and earned her Masters of
Music Performance in Guitar and Voice from Winthrop University. She is
the author of two guitar song books published by Mel Bay Publications
and has been on the Music faculty at Queens University, Wingate
University, and the University of South Alabama. She lives in Fairhope,
AL with her husband Ennio and her two cats.