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Singer-songwriter-pianist Kate Schrock knows about happy
accidents. Thought she has a deliberate career focus, some
things can’t be prepared for. Her latest CD, Live at
the Majestic, is such an event.
“That wasn’t planned”, she says. “It
just happened and I didn’t even know my set was being
recorded. I was doing some shows with guitarist Monte Montgomery,
and after my set, the sound man just handed me the disc and
said, ‘We got this on tape’ ”.
Montgomery and Schrock first combined their talents through
another such happy accident, she recalls. The two performers
were touring some of the same Midwest clubs, and Monte caught
the flu, forcing him to reschedule some shows. A club owner
called her and asked if she would consider letting Montgomery
play on the same night that she did.
“We hit it off, and a few months later, he called and
invited me to come out solo and open some shows for him and
his band,” she says. “So we went around and did
shows in St Louis, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Fort Smith. I had
a blast. With him being a guitar virtusoso and me a piano
player, it was a good mix, and the two shows’ approaches
gave the audience a variety. It seemed to go over very well
and we are thinking of doing more of that.”
Schrock is returning to The Afterthought for what she reckons
must be her fourth show. She visits the area not just to perform,
but also to visit her mother, Jan Schrock, who moved here
several years ago to take a job as director of church and
community relations with Heifer International. The organization
has made an impression of Schrock, who still lives in Maine,
where she was raised.
“It inspires me, when I visit the Heifer Project, to
think about an attitude of living with less and with what’s
important”, she says. “As I travel and see the
world and see where we’re at and where we are heading,
the message I take in is the importance of things such as
sustainable farming, especially in this age of excess we live
in.
“Plus there’s this baby camel I’ve fallen
in love with! I love to see her every time I am in Arkansas.”
Sometimes compared to Tori Amos, Kate Bush or Joni Mitchell,
Schrock differs in going it alone, not just solo, but also
in her career choices. Like singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco,
Schrock puts out her own albums and books her own shows, preferring
to avoid the music industry horrors that could be visited
upon her, as they have upon others.
Music became a focus for Schrock slowly but surely. She worked
as a model in New York and Paris, spent months building wooden
lobster boats and four years studying philosophy and theatre
before focusing on the music she was hearing in her mind and
soul.
She released her debut album, Refuge, in 1994, and followed
that with Shunyata, in 1997 and Dames Rocket, in 2000. Other
than the live album that came out a few months ago, she plans
to stick with a three-year schedule of studio releases.
“I’ve started working on a new one, but when
you have to raise the money yourself, or make it, you’re
dependent on that which can take a while”, she says.
Going it her own way, through writing her own songs, singing
them and playing them on piano can appear like a slow road
to fame, but she is content with playing the tortoise to the
major label hares that are out there.
‘I’m okay with that, and I’m going about
this for different reasons than some”, she says. “The
reasons make sense for me, and thank God that they make sense
for some people who notice what I do. They may not be in the
majority, those who listen to top 40, and believe what they
hear and read and listen to advertising and don’t got
he extra mile to search under the rocks for those of us who
might be there.
‘I’m steady and true to what I do and it’s
between my souls and my mind and my art. I was encouraged
at a recent show I did at a Borders bookstore in Tampa, FLA,
where two little girls, about 8 and 10, were watching me and
the younger one blurted out, ‘I think you sing better
than Brittany Spears!’ we all laughed ~ but I think
maybe there’s hope for those of us not part of the mainstream,
There were people who came up to me after that show who thought
maybe I had inspired these girls to consider things other
than what they saw on their tvs.”
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