[Cover photo credit to Tracy Watts]
A lifelong singer, Katie Oates has trained with vocal coaches and sung a wide variety of music genres including Classical, Folk, musical theatre, Blues, Jazz, Country, Spirituals/Sacred. She’s also performed in church choirs, a choir formed for unhoused people, oratorios, theatres of all sizes, bars, festivals, conferences, house concerts and listening rooms.
For her fifth album, arriving May 3rd, 2024, titled Edge of a Hurricane, Oates wrote and recorded a collection of original songs with a wide variety of song styles, but only after facing plenty of internal struggle and pushing forwards with the help of friends. The single “Reason Enough” is out now.
Today, we’re very pleased to debut Oates’ single “Shoo Be” from Edge of a Hurricane, which arrives for release this Friday, March 15th, 2024.
“Shoo Be” is a surprise of a song, and intentionally crafted to strike the mind and ear as a point of contention, a challenge, and a reassurance. It takes the swing and vocal stylings of a classic Jazz track and combines it with a detailed and accurate list of disturbing happenings in the world. It proposes, first, a little distance, second that you sing along, and third, that you even dance in the face of anxieties. That first movement is where you take in the contrasting elements of the song and start to wonder if it’s possible to combat the world’s catastrophes with a song.
The second movement, where the song admits that it’s all “enough to make you go insane” is the one that wins you over, bringing you to agree that it’s possible to be in your own moment and not distracted by the myriad horrors out there. After that, you’re reminded about the role of singing and dancing as a kind of resistance for others facing hard times. But that third movement is the big TKO that Oates has been setting up along, where she combats directly the role of “hate” in the world and the importance of kindness.
The big truth is that it all progress happens, essentially, in one human mind and one human heart. If we, as individuals, can step back and avoid being pulled into the destructive forces out there, we then become capable of changing the tide of events in our own lives. It all starts with each individual, this song reminds you, and its persistent unshakeable mood of calm stays with you even when the music recedes.
Katie Oates shares about “Shoo Be”:
Inspired by some of the jazz greats of the early 20th century: a reminder that hard times will come and go. Sometimes the best we can do is laugh in the face of our own fear.
Oates actually struggled to put this current album together, dealing with a lot of the faith-shattering events in the world around us.
She explains:
It’s been7 years since I’ve released an album of original songs. I wrote a few songs after I released Play Me, but then I just stopped writing. I kept asking myself : ‘Why does it matter?’ It felt like such a precarious time to be creating. Hate and outrage swarm all around us: on social media, at community meetings, during family meal times — even driving down the interstate. As an artist, it’s hard to know how to respond. Some days I feel angry and despairing ; other days I look around and remember all the wonder and good in the world.
The breakthrough came in 2022 when Katie’s friend and mentor, Grammy nominated singer/songwriter Sally Barris, jump-started Oates’ songwriting with encouragement and a prompt for how to get moving again.
In 2024’s Edge of a Hurricane Katie Oates confronts the “storms in her heart” that we all face.
She previews about the album:
The most hopeful ballads on the album (‘Heart of My Heart’, ‘Love Will Find a Way’, ‘Edge of a Hurricane’) and the jazzy (‘Shoo Be’) all emerge from my hard – fought battle with despair. Because in the end I think it’s as simple as a choice we each have to make between darkness and light. Hate seems so powerful, but a ll hate can do is destroy; only love can create something new. So I choose love. I hope you will, too. And maybe our small little acts will make a difference.
