WOMAD

Simone White

From United States

Signed to Damon Albarn's uber-cool Honest Jons label and favourably compared to Karen Dalton, the cult '60s coffee house folkster much cherished these days, the time is obviously right for Simone White. For a folk singer, her background is suitably bohemian and transitory - born in Hawaii, grew up in California, her grandmother was a showgirl, her auntie wrote pop songs in the '50s, her mother was a folk singer and an artist, her father a sculptor... You get the picture. White herself moved between Seattle, London and New York where she photographed and made films about bands, before setting out on the performing path herself. Her acoustic songs, often almost whispered and invariably gorgeous, could easily fall into the trap of being kooky but there's an incisive wit in the lyrics of knowing tracks like The American War that mark White out as being smarter than the average folk-singing bear. Her latest album, I Am The Man, is one of those warm romantic gems with all the ambience and intimacy of a late-night folk club lock-in.

Biog by Rob Williams