Kate Jacobs

Guitarist, singer and songwriter Kate Jacobs possesses a crystalline soprano alongside an uncommon talent for crafting distinct characters and narratives inside the conventional four-minute song. Born in Virginia, she spent her early years moving from country to country because her father served as a diplomat. While attending the Unitarian Church in Virginia, she and her sisters absorbed civil rights marching songs that often reworked longstanding gospel material. Among the artists who shaped her direction were Elizabeth Cotten and Pete Seeger, both of whom performed at the same neighborhood church.

Her debut recording, The Calm Comes After, assembled band performances that moved along the edges of country and folk. After issuing that 1993 collection herself on Small Pond Music, she placed her next project, What About Regret, with Hoboken-based Bar/None Records in 1995; the earlier album was subsequently reissued by the same label. Her songs appeared in the documentary Delivered Vacant, and she later expanded one of them into a children’s book titled A Sister, published by Hyperion Press. Her soprano remains as arresting and immersive as the ballads and other forms she writes. Hydrangea marked her return in 1998. Not long afterward she set music aside for a time to concentrate on marriage and motherhood, resurfacing with You Call That Dark following a five-year hiatus.