Patty Blee

Patty Blee, an East Coast resident born and raised in Brigantine, New Jersey, works as an acoustic guitar-playing singer/songwriter whose range of influences stretches from Bonnie Raitt through Melissa Etheridge, Sheryl Crow, and Lucinda Williams. Her earthy roots rock and pop/rock writing incorporates country and folk touches without qualifying as either genre outright, and she has pointed to country-pop favorite Emmylou Harris together with folk-pop icon Joni Mitchell as early inspirations. While growing up in Brigantine on the southern New Jersey Shore near Atlantic City, she began absorbing what she calls "acoustic-based singer/songwriters" at a young age. Additional favorites from that period included male folk-rock figures such as Jackson Browne and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. During the 1990s she became an admirer of Crow, Patty Griffin, and Shawn Colvin, although her approach remains grittier and more rugged than Colvin’s and avoids the girlish, waif-like singing associated with Jewel and Suzanne Vega. Performing along the South Jersey Shore throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, she delivered both covers and original material, since some Jersey Shore clubs treat covers as obligatory or at least strongly encouraged. Her debut album, however, titled Disguise and issued in 2002 on the Somers Point, New Jersey-based Treasure label, consists exclusively of original songs.