Katrina Parker calls back to the classic desert folk pop of yesteryear with lovely new LP Stars.
LA, along with all its starry-eyed glitz and gloom, is clearly the focus of Katrina Parker’s expansive new collection of songs. The singer-songwriter has been fortunate enough to experience the fame, red carpets, and flashbulbs that accompanied her stint on Season 2 of The Voice where she reached the semi-finals. But she also experienced the fallout, making heady choices that derailed her artistic integrity.
For the past few years, Parker has chosen to return to a bit of normalcy and to try to get back to the reason she began singing in the first place. The image she recalled was from her childhood—swinging in the backyard, singing her heart out all by her lonesome, bathed in the natural reverb of her rural surroundings, doing exactly what she was born to do. She continued to cultivate that feeling and began writing again, this time with a clear touchstone for why she was making music.
The result is a heartwarming album that channels the clear-eyed nuance of Gillian Welch, while harkening back to the joyful country pop of Patsy Cline, placing Parker’s rich and tender voice front and center—natural and unadorned as she has intended it this time around.
