Kate and Cathy began to play music together almost thirty years into reunion. The ice broke after reading the first draft of each other's side of their parallel memoir - which for fifteen years they had not shared their chapters with each other until the draft was complete. At that point, something shifted, and the music which had always been too painful to share became open to them. While these field recordings are raw, our voices in song tell a deeper story than words alone.
"Better times will come" by Janis Ian
Cathy - During the pandemic, Kate and I had to move our music outside and at a safe distance. We still try to play once a week or so, but often things (like weather, kids' homework or life) get in the way. This was one day that it worked. A week or two earlier, Kate taught me a song by Janis Ian called Better Times Will Come which was written at the beginning of the pandemic as a call for hope, and our warm up song during our practices together that centered us and helped us to focus on the good things we have. Steve grabbed his phone and took this video as we sang unaware. We wanted to share Janis Ian's song so generously shared with all of us to amplify our hope, love and belief that better times will come.
We are thankful to Janis Ian who posted our field recording to her facebook and Better Times Will Come Project website recently. Her encouragement and support is felt in the following comments...
"Kate Power and Cathy Heslin come to the Better Times Project from a different emotional place than anyone else to date. Kate was 18 years old when she became pregnant, and relinquished Cathy to adoption upon her birth. Eighteen years later, they reunited, and have collaborated since to tell their story of adoption, and reunion. They’ve been working on a double-memoir titled Kathleen-Cathleen, making music together, and now even co-writing songs. Since I believe that all artists – indeed, all human beings – go through a continual process of moving away, then reuniting, then moving away again, then reuniting – looking at their website was particularly interesting to me." - Janis Ian
"Kate Power and Cathy Heslin come to the Better Times Project from a different emotional place than anyone else to date. Kate was 18 years old when she became pregnant, and relinquished Cathy to adoption upon her birth. Eighteen years later, they reunited, and have collaborated since to tell their story of adoption, and reunion. They’ve been working on a double-memoir titled Kathleen-Cathleen, making music together, and now even co-writing songs. Since I believe that all artists – indeed, all human beings – go through a continual process of moving away, then reuniting, then moving away again, then reuniting – looking at their website was particularly interesting to me." - Janis Ian
Writers who playWe performed at the White Eagle just a few days after our first show together. It was an event for the American Writers Conference with an open mic for writers who also play music. It was a blast!
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song story, ARTICHOKE MUSIC, 3/24/2019
Last year, after reading each other's sides of their memoir's completed first draft, they began playing music together and writing songs that were inspired by the sharing of each other's stories. Kathleen Cathleen, Song Story is a performance that evolved out of that experience. The performance includes original songs performed together interspersed with spoken word that reveals a mother and daughter's journey through relinquishment, adoption, reunion, and reconciliation.
We performed our musical reading adaptation of Kathleen~Cathleen called Song Story at Artichoke Music on March 24th, 2019. It was thrilling (and terrifying) to have the tickets sell out in just a couple days. We were fortunate to have our first performance together be with such a loving, supportive crowd.
We performed our musical reading adaptation of Kathleen~Cathleen called Song Story at Artichoke Music on March 24th, 2019. It was thrilling (and terrifying) to have the tickets sell out in just a couple days. We were fortunate to have our first performance together be with such a loving, supportive crowd.