Music News
Katie Elevitch recently released the online version of her new album, Kindling for the Fire, on November 11, 2008, Veteran's Day, in honor of her father Mort's memory. Morton Elevitch was a WWII veteran, humble recipient of the Purple Heart for Bravery and critically acclaimed author of Dog Tags Yapping: The WWII Letters of a Combat GI.
Katie moved to the cottage at 49 Woods Road - the former Victor Powell home - shortly after her father's sudden death in September 2006 and lived there until May 2007, when it was torn down to make way for new construction. Victor Powell was a well-known piano teacher and organist who lived in the cottage for many decades until his death several years ago. Others who once lived there include Noel Coward and Orson Welles.
In January 2007, Katie brought all her instruments, recording equipment, and band members from NYC to the cottage to live and record for three days. The band includes Jonathan Maron on bass (Groove Collective), Riley McMahon on guitars/piano (Spottiswoode & His Enemies) and Adrian Harpham on drums.
It was a magical experience, during which the entire house was turned into a recording studio. This included placing miked amps in the cedar closet and turning the back bedroom into an engineering booth. Each track was recorded live and many arrangements were improvised, most notably the title track, which was totally improvised and written by the band on the spot. This album is not only a recording of Katie’s music, it is also the recording of an enchanting, special place in history, that is now no more.
The resulting album, produced by Katie's longtime guitarist and fellow band member, Riley McMahon, is due for release in early 2009. It can already be heard in its entirety on the Internet at www.KatieElevitch.com, where you can download each song or the album as a whole to an mp3 player/computer, as well as make donations to help cover the cost of printing the CD and DVD of the making of the album.
Here is what the critics are saying:
Kindling for the Fire is "Astonishly good…One of the best (albums) this year." - Lucid Culture
“Fearless…orgasmic…primal” – The Big Takeover, Issue #63, Kindling Review
"Amazing" – Peter Apfelbaum, Grammy nominated Jazz Artist on Kindling
"Awesome" - Haale, Critically acclaimed Persian-Rock Singer-Songwriter
"Wrestles your ear to the ground" - Carl Hancock Rux, Obie-award winning Artist
"She was Great!" - Ethan Hawke to Norah Jones, Banjo Jim's, September 12th, 2008
If you would like to be included on Katie's email list to receive notices of news and upcoming performances in the area, please email her at: info@katieelevitch.com