Kat Edmonson

Kat Edmonson grew up in Houston with a diet of the Great American Songbook and the traditional pop of the 1940s and 1950s, a grounding that still shapes her work. She wrote her first song at nine, on the school bus, and after a year at the College of Charleston she moved to Austin, Texas, in 2002 to chase a career in music. Her voice sits comfortably between jazz, folk and old-fashioned pop, and she has described her sound on Way Down Low as vintage pop, a phrase that fits the brisk, unfussy arrangements she favours.

Her debut, Take to the Sky, was self-released and reached the Top 20 of Billboard's jazz chart in March 2009. Way Down Low followed in 2012, funded through a Kickstarter campaign, and reached No. 1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart, as did her third album, The Big Picture, released by Sony Masterworks in September 2014. Her collaboration with Lyle Lovett, who invited her to open his 2010 summer tour, produced a version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" included on his 2012 album Release Me. She has since played the Montreux Jazz Festival and toured as support to Jamie Cullum across several European countries, and her song "Lucky" featured in the film Admission.