Biography
Seattle-based singer/songwriter Linda Waterfall fuses naturalist and autobiographical themes with inventive arrangements that draw from folk, pop, jazz, and classical sources. Environmental concerns surface in many of her compositions, yet her romantic material proves equally compelling.
After her grandfather altered the family surname from Wassenfallen upon arriving from Switzerland, Waterfall played music from her earliest recollections. Although she received classical piano instruction, she mastered guitar on her own during high school; her parents nevertheless discouraged these pursuits. At Stanford University she concentrated on visual art, yet after earning Phi Beta Kappa honors she relocated to Seattle in the mid-1970s and returned to music.
Initial notice came through her role in Entropy Service, regarded as one of the city’s strongest pre-grunge ensembles. She spent a brief period on bass with the country-rock group Skyboys before launching a solo career as a singer/songwriter in 1976. Her first album, Mary’s Garden, appeared in 1977 on her Trout Records imprint; Windham Hill later reissued it as one of the fledgling New Age label’s earliest offerings. In 1979 a poll by The Seattle Sun and KZAM designated her Seattle’s top solo artist. Her fourth release, Everything Looks Different, was tracked in 1983 alongside virtuosic guitarist Scott Nygaard.
The a cappella choral work “Trees,” created in 1989 with fifth graders from Maple Elementary School, received its premiere from the Mt. Madonna Choir in 1992 and was later preserved on the choir’s CD Clear Day of Grace. Drawing on her classical background, Waterfall composed additional choral pieces through grants from the Seattle Arts Commission. She set six French fables by Jean de la Fontaine (“Fables de Jean de la Fontaine”) and six poems by Walt Whitman (“Leaves of Grass”) to music; the initial Whitman setting appeared on the 1992 album Body English, while four more followed on the 1998 album In the Presence of the Light. Her ten-minute piece “So Much Love,” scored for choir, guitar, electric bass, and harp, incorporates quotations from the New Testament.
After her grandfather altered the family surname from Wassenfallen upon arriving from Switzerland, Waterfall played music from her earliest recollections. Although she received classical piano instruction, she mastered guitar on her own during high school; her parents nevertheless discouraged these pursuits. At Stanford University she concentrated on visual art, yet after earning Phi Beta Kappa honors she relocated to Seattle in the mid-1970s and returned to music.
Initial notice came through her role in Entropy Service, regarded as one of the city’s strongest pre-grunge ensembles. She spent a brief period on bass with the country-rock group Skyboys before launching a solo career as a singer/songwriter in 1976. Her first album, Mary’s Garden, appeared in 1977 on her Trout Records imprint; Windham Hill later reissued it as one of the fledgling New Age label’s earliest offerings. In 1979 a poll by The Seattle Sun and KZAM designated her Seattle’s top solo artist. Her fourth release, Everything Looks Different, was tracked in 1983 alongside virtuosic guitarist Scott Nygaard.
The a cappella choral work “Trees,” created in 1989 with fifth graders from Maple Elementary School, received its premiere from the Mt. Madonna Choir in 1992 and was later preserved on the choir’s CD Clear Day of Grace. Drawing on her classical background, Waterfall composed additional choral pieces through grants from the Seattle Arts Commission. She set six French fables by Jean de la Fontaine (“Fables de Jean de la Fontaine”) and six poems by Walt Whitman (“Leaves of Grass”) to music; the initial Whitman setting appeared on the 1992 album Body English, while four more followed on the 1998 album In the Presence of the Light. Her ten-minute piece “So Much Love,” scored for choir, guitar, electric bass, and harp, incorporates quotations from the New Testament.
Albums
