Katy Moffatt
Midnight Radio


Cover Art

A red-haired Texas girl goes to sleep at nine, wakes up at midnight in the luminous glow of a clock radio. The music plays low - those Jimmy Webb songs; three-minute short stories; lost highways from Phoenix to Wichita; the world beyond Fort Worth.

The young dreamer grows up to write and sing short stories of her own. Turn the dial and listen: poets and saints and ghosts along the road; Dylan Thomas' childhood among the snail-horned churches; Saint Anthony with gin blossoms; the passionate rise of Frida Kahlo's eyebrows; Phil Och's melodic take on Alfred Noyes' poem "the Highwayman" ...

Halfway through this collection the stained glass is shattered by Katy's dark hold on women and the blues. Freed slave "Sojourner Truth" opens up a vein and howls, "Where'd you get your Christ!" Men who can't stand the heat are crawling toward the exits; Miss Audrey is armed and dangerous and Mary and Joseph are leaving town. Vaya con Dios.

This record was recorded during the "blizzard of '96" in New York. 1995 was a rough year. Katy has survived and moved on. The journey brought an even deeper warmth and passion to her voice. Folk, Country, Blues, Rock ... Roots? She erases the boundaries. They call the music "Americana" now. Well close your eyes and listen to The Voice. Here's twelve new testaments.

It's midnight in Fort Worth; the radio glows a magic yellow-orange ... Count it off, Katy.


Tom Russell
March 1996, NY

Press:

5 stars

Recorded in Brooklyn, not exactly a country studio hotbed, during the Blizzard of '96, not exactly an auspicious moment. Moffatt has never sounded better, which is saying a lot, and the songs are as good as she's ever written, which is saying even more.

Like Iris Dement, another fringe folk/country artist with cult standing, this red-haired Texan belts, wails, and caresses lyrics that are both bright and biting. The title cut sets the tone for the album, but the traffic stopper is "Sojourner Truth (Ain't I A Woman)," a bluesy feminist blast that will curl your toes.
--Bill Bell, New York Daily News


If ever there was the perfect singer/songwriter, it is Katy Moffatt. Her voice is perhaps the most searingly beautiful thing you'll ever hear. -- Nick Dalton, Daily Express (London)


Katy Moffatt's Midnight Radio beams from the crossroads where country, folk and "mature" pop meet - with a sign pointing to Texas. The spare, well-crafted songs, most by Moffatt and musical partner Tom Russell, frame her rich, thick soprano. The best tracks are evocative ballads like Wings of a Blackbird, The Sound of One Heart Breaking and Sparrow of Swansea (for Dylan Thomas). The exquisite Nazareth to Bethlehem is a rare gift: an original Christmas song.
--USA Today


Few contemporary C&W or roots music divas have the power or substance of Katy Moffatt. Able to sing soft and sweet or loud, ballsy and bold, Moffatt is a real Texas firecracker with a punch. She has weathered the storms and lived to tell the tale and write the stories touching our hearts. Moffatt recounts not only a child's memory of listening to the radio at midnight in the title cut, but also a woman's declaration of her boundaries to her man ("If You Can't Stand the Heat"). Historical, emotional, thought provoking are all words that apply. Never one to shy away from taboo subjects, Moffatt tells of a woman and her gun ("Never Be Alone Again"). "Sparrow of Swansea (For Dylan Thomas)" and the honky tonk tale "Hank and Audrey" also are good cuts. Even more controversial is "Rosa's Favorite Son," co-written in part with Chris Gaffney about illegal immigrants from Mexico. Moffatt proves she is certainly one of the most literary artists on the current scene. Moffatt is no powder puff playing the Music City game, but a woman of substance.
- Jana Pendragon--Country Standard Time


Co-produced by Katy and Tom Russell and recorded in New York at the beginning of the year, Midnight Radio marks a return to the paired down acoustic style of her 1992 collaboration with Russell, The Greatest Show On Earth. On a personal level, it must also mark a new start for Katy after a year in which she was seriously ill with tuberculosis and needed six months to recover. Not that you'd know it from anything about this album save for Russell's sleeve notes which tell us, "Katy survived and moved on (with) an even deeper warmth and passion to her voice".

And it's true... The voice, always strong and clear, does sound the best it's ever been. Not surprisingly for an album with eight Moffatt/Russell co-writes, lyrically things are often complex but always avoid over-complication, while, with Moffatt, Russell and Andrew Hardin on guitars, Hank Bones' bass and David Mansfield on bottleneck guitar, Dobro and fiddle the arrangements are simple but never simplistic.

Picking some moments, and there are plenty to pick from, Rosa's Favourite Son a Moffatt/Chris Gaffney composition, comments on the current Californian political attitude towards immigrants, "... give us your tired, your poor, yearning to breath free and we might send them all back home with a brand new misery", Sojourner Truth is a passionately strong blues, telling the story of a freed slave and The Sound Of One Heart Breaking is a stunningly beautiful sad song written by Russell and Sylvia Tyson. In a lighter mood, (actually, they're songs you'd consider 'deep' from others) with If You Can't Stand the Heat, Katy turns the tables, asking, "What if I called you the things that you've been calling me?" while Hank And Audrey is a Moffatt/Russell duet that hazards a guess as to the Williams' home life. "Miss Audrey, armed and dangerous", writes Russell... and Ms Moffatt, too?

If 1995 was a rough year for Katy Moffatt, Midnight Radio shows that she's now back to her peak, with perhaps her best album yet. You can give thanks for that wherever you feel appropriate, also that the ever-consistent Round Tower Music (incidentally, also responsible for bringing us the output of the Dead Reckoning label) continue to release her work over here in the UK and Ireland. If you've ever woken at midnight on a warm night and tuned in the radio in hope of finding some gentle acoustic country music, believe me, this is the album you've been hoping to hear...
Pete Fairless -- Red Hot Country (UK)

Personnel

Katy Moffatt: vocals, harmony, acoustic guitar
Tom Russell: vocals ("Hank and Audrey"), harmony vocals, acoustic guitar, percussion
Andrew Hardin: lead acoustic guitars, electric guitars, tiple, percussion
Hank Bones: bass guitar, lead guitar, percussion
David Mansfield: bottleneck guitar, dobro, fiddle

Song Titles
Formats

Produced by Tom Russell and Katy Moffatt

Year Released: 1996
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