Kate MacLeod
Doing it All
by Michael Parrish

Depending on your musical interests, you might have run across Kate MacLeod in any of a variety of contexts. Fans of singer/songwriter work might well have heard her two starkly beautiful solo albums from Waterbug. Bluegrass aficionados might know her because her songs have been recorded by artists like Loose Ties and Mollie O'Brien, or because her discs were produced by the late Hot Rize guitarist Charles Sawtelle and feature other bluegrass heavyweights like Matt Flinner and Peter Rowan. Finally, fans of Irish music may have run across MacLeod singing and playing fiddle in her part-time Celtic Band, Shanahy.

Originally from the Washington, D.C., region, MacLeod now calls Salt Lake City, Utah, home. She first made the pilgrimage 20 years ago, when she moved there to attend a school for violin making. MacLeod found Utah to her liking and stayed there.

Although MacLeod wrote songs and did a bit of performing during that period, she was not inspired to pursue music seriously until a series of encounters moved her in that direction. "At the time I was beginning my first recording, I didn't know anything about doing that sort of thing, and I didn't know anybody in Salt Lake who could help me make a recording. I had been playing a little bit in coffee-houses, had been on the radio a lot, and there were some people in the region singing my songs. I didn't really think about recording. I was a mother, had three kids, and had been working at the violin school for about 10 years. I met Charles, he heard me, and he said, 'Kate, we've gotta get you a recording.' So I thought about it for about six months and finally called him up and said, 'Why don't we try to do this?' It was one of those meeting- the-right-person-who-can-help-me-through-this situations."

After recording her first disc, MacLeod was given a scholarship to the 1995 Folk Alliance in Portland, Oregon, where another chance encounter occurred. "I didn't know what it was. I went up there with my little recording and that's when I ran into Andrew [Calhoun]. I felt like Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter when she didn't know what she was saying. I feel that way a lot in this business."

Calhoun was entranced by MacLeod's music and put out her first disc, Trying to Get it Right, on his own Waterbug label. That disc, containing stirring, evocative tunes like "Prairyerth" and "Lark in the Morning," along with the bluesy "Alaska," gave MacLeod a national audience. She recorded a second disc, Constant Emotion, in 1997, but literally hit a roadblock of sorts. "I had to take a lot of time off after Constant Emotion because I was in a car accident, and I was sick for about a year. It happened after the mastering for the recording but before it was released. It made me incapable of doing much, so now I'm just catching up on things."

Since her recovery, MacLeod has been involved in a flurry of musical activity. Shanahy, the Celtic band MacLeod has been part of since 1994, just released their second CD, Far Away. MacLeod sings and plays fiddle with the quintet, which also features vocalist/ guitarist Mark Hazel and three talented multi-instrumentalists, Paul Mitchell, Laura Dupuy, and Andrew Morrill. MacLeod has also been honing her producer's chops: In addition to producing Far Away, she sat in the producer's chair for The Roots Run Deep, a disc by German singer/songwriter Anke Summerhill.

MacLeod has three recordings of her own in various stages of production. The first is her third solo project, as yet untitled. "I've been working on it for a while — it's almost done. A collection of my songs, with one cover. It has more of my violin backup — I played all the instruments myself." Also ready to go is a live EP, recorded with Mark Hazel of Shanahy, who is MacLeod's frequent performing partner. The third recording in the works is a studio effort with the four-piece band with which MacLeod performs with in and around Salt Lake City. It features Hazel, Cliff Smith, and Barry Carter.

Now that the children are a bit older, she is able to devote most of her time to music. "The oldest one is in college now, and the next one is a junior in high school. I stayed at home with them for years — that was my primary job during that time. All three of them moved in with their father about a year ago, and that freed me up some, also. They live up the street, so I see them every day."

She tries to arrange her touring in small doses. "I don't go out for long periods of time because I have so much going on here. I do a lot of weekend touring. I fly in and out a lot. I think of the last couple of years as getting my feet wet, because I was very unfamiliar with the whole scene. As I get out there and play, I find that I really, really like to tour, and I think as the years go on I would like to do it more."

In late April, MacLeod was about to take off for two weeks in Europe playing with New York City songwriter Jack Hardy. "I've been playing fiddle with his band. He's got this tour over in Europe, and we're all going over. He's been a great catalyst for songwriting. I went to his songwriting group a couple of times, and it's brilliant what goes on there."

Over the last few years, MacLeod has seen more and more other musicians covering her songs. I asked her why so many of those playing her songs tend to be from the bluegrass world. "I used to play a lot of bluegrass, and I used to play in an old time group, hence the ties with Loose Ties, Charles Sawtelle, and so on. A lot of my songs are very appropriate for bluegrass. Although I'm not playing bluegrass anymore, because I've gone back to my first love, which is Celtic fiddling, the songs do work very well in that format. People call me up and say, 'Would you mind if we sing your song?' I'm glad that they get something out of it. Working in this business is a funny, quirky thing, and the point of writing a song is for it to enrich or move somebody.

"I would say that I'm much more comfortable in the studio than I used to be, and I'm more open as a person than I used to be. Part of it was the accident, because it really opened me up to a lot of things. There were a few years when I wondered if I should be doing this at all, but I don't wonder that anymore. I'm just delving into it more and more."