Four years ago, singer-songwriter Kate Grom (Burnett) experienced a transformative time, finding her authentic musical voice. She is now pursuing her dream of writing a sophomore EP. Kate’s debut album, Heroine, produced by two-time Grammy Award winning producer Stewart Lerman was released in 2017. It is a poetic and boldly vulnerable singer-songwriter album that conjures the elegance of the American countryside.

Her aesthetic encompasses Americana traditions such as folk, bluegrass, and country, as well as the reflective and literate traditions of contemporary and classic singer-songwriters. Her influences include Stevie Nicks, Loretta Lynn, Bob Dylan, America, Patsy Cline, Emmylou Harris, Simon & Garfunkel, and Gillian Welch, among others. Core to her music is a personal approach to lyric writing with broadly resonate messages, and a musicality that reflects the rural beauty of her time growing up on her family’s farm. Here she spent a lot of time locked inside her own imagination, creating stories amidst bucolic surroundings.

She explored music in performance and application through church choir, chamber choir, women’s choir, and Musical Theatre, and later studied formally at Belmont University in Nashville. Here, Kate performed in her folk-rock duo band, and performed with various musical acts in the city. Her artistic trajectory grew organically from a series of almost random epiphanies. A treasure of classic rock records hidden in the attic of her house became an object of intense fascination in her teenaged years. Her uncle—a ride or die Harley man who attended Woodstock—stoked the fire with his own eccentric lifestyle and knowledge of prime 1960s and 1970s rock n’ roll. On her own she explored rootsy artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Emmylou Harris, and the band America. And, later, while in Nashville, Kate soaked up the pure folk, country, and bluegrass wafting forth from the air of Music City.

The title of Kate’s nine-song album, Heroine, is inspired by the Nora Ephron quote “Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.” It reflects the empowerment and courageous introspection inherent in Kate’s lyrics. It is a powerful collection of her own stories and of the memorable women in her life.

Heroine is both rustic and refined, replete with lonesome pedal steel guitar, moony atmospherics, and back porch Americana. The songs simmer with slow burn dynamics, understated grooves, and soaring hooks. Kate’s vocals exhibit a fragile power— filled with longing, soaring emotionality, and a quaint soulful melancholy that’s both stirring and comforting. There is a weary beauty surrounding the album’s title track. The song’s sweet melancholy coats your soul like medicine for broken heart.

Stewart Lerman, who has worked with Willie Nelson, Sharon Van Etten, Elvis Costello, Neko Case, Patti Smith, Antony and the Johnsons, produced Heroine at Hobo Sound. The musicians playing on the record are world-class players who have worked with such venerated artists Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, My Morning Jacket, Brandi Carlile, Lana Del Ray, and the Eagles, among others.