Catherine Howe

Esto si que es una sorpresa. Numero Group (la compañía que se dedica a reeditar las maravillas más desconocidas del universo pop) ha reeditado el primer lp de esta cantante-actriz americana al parecer hiperbuscado por los enteradillos de la jet set del soft pop. “El santo grial”, he llegado a leer; un disco que ha alcanzado los 2.000 dólares en subastas y que ahora se edita por primera vez gracias a Keith D´arcy –otrora rey de la indiepoplist y del fanzineo indie y ahora rey de los enteraos del soft pop-, ya que según los de Numero Group, “The original tapes were, of course, lost. Most likely tossed out during the spring cleaning of 1985 at London's Trident Studios. We were however able to secure a clean source copy from renowned soft-psych collector Keith D'arcy.” El caso es que la música de esta chica “It's a real rainy day affair” , una maravilla que mezcla a Carole King con el folk, pasando por bonitos arreglos jazzies. Bonito de verdad. Aquí pego la hoja promocional de Numero Group y la crítica de Uncut de Marzo del 2007  012 Catherine Howe: What A Beautiful Place

We wanted to make a really simple record. After a year of being plagued by complex compilations, multiple trips to Detroit, and a hellacious move, The Numero Group wanted an easy autumn lay up. Our office white board was overflowing with projects, the stereo crowded with LPs, 45s and spindles of little silver discs, while memorabilia sat stuffed in already too full filing cabinets. Pick one. Pre-war Ethiopian jazz? Complete field recordings of Ecorse, Michigan? We could go on and on. In Catherine Howe's case, we just loved her record.

At the time, it didn't even warrant a file. The sum of our knowledge was one CDR that sat semi-regularly wedged in the "Disc 3" position for the bulk of the summer. Slots 1 & 2 are generally reserved for current projects, but two hours into our day we would be pleasantly alarmed by the opening chimes of "What A Beautiful Place." It's jarring, almost, like something you would here at the beginning of a children's program on PBS. "Dun. Dun. Dun-dun-den. Deng," with slight reverb. And then Catherine Howe's 20 year old voice whispers post-adolescent poetry into your ear. It's a push back the chair moment.

We've never made a record like this before, but our shelves are littered with similar efforts. "Folk" might not do it justice, and "soft-pop" seems like the kind of label you might give to a contemporary Rod Stewart album. If you employ a "Jazz-folk" section in your filing scheme, now might be the time to put it to use. Tuck it in between "Bryter Layter" and "North Star Grassman And The Ravens," or more recently "Central Reservation." It's a real rainy day affair.

We're not going to paraphrase our copiously researched liners, but we will tell you a little about the history of the little orchestral English folk record that couldn't. Produced by semi-legendary jazz pianist Bobby Scott, the oft-mistaken concept album was issued by the tiny UK imprint Reflection Records in 1971. Issued to the media. Reflection went belly up before the record even hit the racks, killing the momentum created by Radio One airplay and dooming the record to an area that Numero specializes in: beyond obscurity.

The original tapes were, of course, lost. Most likely tossed out during the spring cleaning of 1985 at London's Trident Studios. We were however able to secure a clean source copy from renowned soft-psych collector Keith D'arcy, and a demo of "In The Hot Summer," which was intended to appear on the album. In addition, we conducted hours of interviews with Howe and Reflection Records owner Phil Gillin, and unearthed half a dozen unpublished photos. We sat in brutal Los Angeles rush hour traffic, ate sushi at the Santa Monica Airport, and on a related/unrelated note DJ'd a Chingy record release party. Somehow this took three months.

UNCUT MAGAZINE
It’s that strange time of year when not a lot of new albums are coming out, and the ear gravitates toward whatever offbeat material shows up in the mailbox. And so my unlikely obsession for the last week or two has been the reissue of What a Beautiful Place, an almost uncategorizable album by an English singer named Catherine Howe.

The set is due on January 30 from Numero Group, a wonderful Chicago archival label that to date has unearthed a dozen wild-ass records encompassing ultra-obscure soul, Caribbean music, gospel funk, and power pop, among other things. Howe’s collection – which essentially went unreleased back in 1971, thanks to the collapse of its label – may be the most unusual item in Numero’s eclectic catalog.

What a Beautiful Place doesn’t just exist outside its time – it was of another time at the moment it was created. In the late ’60s, Halifax-born Catherine Howe was a not unsuccessful theater and TV actress with a large portfolio of unrecorded songs. Her main writing model was Burt Bacharach; on her own website today, Howe speaks admiringly of his hit “The Look of Love,” and indeed Dusty Springfield’s 1967 recording of that tune sets the template for Howe’s composing and vocal styles.

She eventually hooked up with Reflection Records, an independent label with distribution ties to giant CBS. In 1970, What a Beautiful Place was cut in four days of hurriedly arranged recording sessions with producer Bobby Scott. A well-traveled jazz pianist in his own right, Scott had roots in an older style of pop. His sticky theme for the 1961 film A Taste of Honey had been covered by the Beatles at one of their first sessions. He had also authored the Hollies hit “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.”

The album the 20-year-old singer and the 33-year-old producer concocted could not be called a mainstream affair of its time. Made in an era when singer-songwriters were flexing their rock muscles and Carole King’s Tapestry ruled the charts, What a Beautiful Place is a lush, heavily orchestrated record that feels more a product of the early or mid-’60s. In its day, it would have sounded square, but it may be that very squareness that plays compellingly now.

It’s an off-the-wall mixture of slightly shlocky old-school pop and neo-trad English folk (though Howe denies such leanings), with some jazzy seasoning provided by Scott’s own stabbing, bluesy piano work. At its center is Howe, whose chilled, half-swallowed, vibrato-free vocals maintain a sustained, charming purity.

From a description of the music, one might imagine that What a Beautiful Place is a twee piece of work, but there’s a bracingly dark undercurrent to the album; it may not be working Nick Drake territory, but it sure isn’t Melanie, either. The tone is struck in the opening moments, when – after a six-note series of orchestral chimes that acts as a linking device throughout – Howe intones, “A tiny child knelt before a flower and he touched what he saw. Someone from a strange place stopped, saw the flower, and the petals withered and perished before his dying eyes.”

Whoa. The gloom of this opener is not dispelled in the songs that follow, which are marked by the blunt pessimism of “Nothing More Than Strangers,” the cool appraisal of a paradise lost in “What a Beautiful Place,” or the unsettling madhouse warblings of “Words Through a Locked Door.” It’s hard to say what people would have thought of this jarring blend of pop gorgeousness and interior gloom, but What a Beautiful Place never really made it into the marketplace.

Howe had a brief moment of pop success in the mid-’70s, and she emerged with a new album in 2000. I don’t know what the other work sounds like, but What a Beautiful Place indicates she’s a fitting subject for further investigation.

- Chris Morris Uncut - March 2007