Since Richard Thompson chose Katherine Priddy as “The Best Thing I’ve Heard All Year” on the strength of her 2018 “Wolf” EP, her star has risen exponentially. Winning fans such as Guy Garvey, Mark Radcliffe, Stuart Maconie and the late Janice Long and gathering glowing press reviews across the board for The Eternal Rocks Beneath including The Observer. Priddy crosses genres, charting at number 1 in The Official UK Folk Chart and number 5 in the Official UK Americana Chart.
She is in demand as a performer and collaborator, playing Cambridge Folk Festival (where she won the prestigious Christian Raphael Prize), Glastonbury (where she appeared on the coveted BBC2 TV coverage), Green Man, End Of The Road, Beautiful Days and the BBC Proms. As well as sell out headline tours, Priddy has been chosen to support world class artists including Richard Thompson, The Chieftains, Loudon Wainwright III and Vashti Bunyan.
In 2022, she took her music worldwide with a series of shows in Australia, including a performance at Port Fairy Folk Festival, plus a showcase in Kansas City USA as part of Folk Alliance International. 2023 saw no sign of her momentum slowing; highlights included a new single on Chrysalis Records as part of a Double LP of Nick Drake covers from artists such as Self Esteem, Aldous Harding, John Grant, Bombay Bicycle Club and more, as well as a show supporting Guy Garvey at The Roundhouse.
2024 saw the release of her eagerly awaited second album to widespread praise: The Pendulum Swing. Once again recorded in Birmingham by producer Simon J Weaver, guest musicians comprised John Smith (lead guitar), Harry Fausing Smith (strings), Marcus Hamblett (brass/double bass), George Boomsma (guitar, backing vocals, co-writer on track “Ready To Go”), Polly Virr (cello) and even a brief appearance from Priddy’s family members right at the end of the album, in keeping with its themes
Her latest undertaking is two Winter themed songs in collaboration with Poet Laureate Simon Armitage with Priddy setting two specially commissioned poems to music.
The collaboration came about when Simon Armitage read out another poem on Guy Garvey’s BBC 6 music show Finest Hour and issued a challenge for any artist listening to put music to it. He mentioned Radiohead and Katherine Priddy in particular. Within 24 hours, Priddy had responded with a song using his poem for the lyrics.
This was the catalyst for Priddy and Armitage joining forces on these two new songs. Simon wrote two poems especially for the project, which Katherine turned into songs and recorded with legendary producer Rob Ellis (PJ Harvey, Anna Calvi, Marianne Faithfull).
The first track, “Close Season” is available today kpriddy.lnk.to/closeseasonPR
The second – “Daybreaker” will follow in the new year.
Speaking about the project, Simon Armitage said:
“I was once DJing in a treehouse in a wood and I saw Katherine dancing among the trees, so I knew we had some musical reference points in common. This kind of collaboration is all about trust and a belief in each other’s work. When I’ve written a lyric for someone else it’s like the words have become evacuees – they’re still mine but they’re being nurtured and loved by someone else, and they’ll come back smarter, more streetwise and speaking with a different accent.
“Close Season” is the personification of winter as a cold and insensitive man, someone who takes as he pleases and leaves snowflake fingerprints on everything he touches. Winter can be baffling and unresponsive, but it doesn’t mean that we are numb to its presence and its consequences. Frost can burn.
Daybreaker” is the thaw after the freeze, the light at the end of winter’s tunnel, that day when it feels like sunlight is in the blood. Katherine has found those moments in the lyric when the warmth of dawn suddenly floods in. The speaker in the song is ready to spread her wings and head towards brighter things. If “Close Season” is a night song, this is a song for morning, a waking up, a throwing open of the curtains.
Katherine Priddy commented:
“As someone who studied literature and has always drawn on poetry and books for my own songwriting, it is such a great joy to have worked with Simon on this project.
It was an exciting and somewhat challenging process for me, as an artist who places a great deal of emphasis on my own lyrics. It felt odd and slightly nerve-wracking, placing such an important portion of these songs in the hands of someone else… but whose better than those of the Poet Laureate.
For “Close Season”, I wanted to try and capture that dangerous mix of soft intimacy and unspoken anger, building to a passionate outburst that’s been smouldering at the centre of an unfaithful relationship. I loved the idea of Winter being personified as a cold lover, who drifts in and out, beautiful but hard, delicate but spiteful, irresistible but dangerous. It feels suitably different to a lot of the happy Christmas numbers that always paint the Winter as something magical and cosy.
In contrast, “Daybreaker” felt hopeful and quietly joyful. It reminded me of the feeling you get towards the end of Winter, the first day you notice the air has lost its sting, and you see the first tentative buds appearing on the branches. I wanted to try and capture this feeling in this song, how it builds from being still cold and lethargic in Winter’s grip, to a warm, almost ecstatic ending as the sunlight returns.
Headline Tour – Feb/Mar 2025
26.02.25 – Pocklington Arts Centre – SOLD OUT
27.02.25 – Sheffield Greystones – SOLD OUT
28.02.25 – Nottingham Metronome – SOLD OUT
01.03.25 – Stamford Arts Centre
05.03.25 – Pontadawe Arts Centre
06.03.25 – Gloucester Guildhall
07.03.25 – Leicester Y Theatre
08.03.25 – Settle Victoria Hall
10.03.25 – Colchester Arts Centre
12.03.25 – Norwich Arts Centre
13.03.25 – Oxford SJE Arts
14.03.25 – Teddington Landmark Arts Centre
15.03.25 – Ashford Revelation
19.03.25 – Leeds City Varieties
20.03.25 – Gateshead The Glasshouse Sage 2
21.03.25 – Glasgow Oran Mor
22.03.25 – Manchester Halle St Peters
For further details please visit: www.katherinepriddy.co.uk
