Concerts

Admire the Americana stylings of Susan Cattaneo in Somerville

The former Berklee songwriting professor will celebrate her new release in the Burren's backroom on March 3.

By Blake Maddux

1 minute to read

Singer, songwriter, and producer Susan Cattaneo’s 2017 album, “The Hammer & the Heart,” featured nearly a dozen guest artists (many of them fellow Boston music scene fixtures), included 18 songs, had an electric side and an acoustic side, and clocked in at more than an hour. The forthcoming “All Is Quiet” includes half as many songs, is all acoustic, and was recorded remotely with only Kevin Barry and Duke Levine (both fellow Boston Music Awards nominees) as accompaniment.

On her Kickstarter page, Cattaneo says, “These songs reflect my heartache for the world, but they also reveal how I rediscovered joy, redemption and resiliency … Whereas [“The Hammer & the Heart”] was boisterous and far-reaching, this project allowed me to turn inwards and embrace vulnerability.”

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“All Is Quiet” will be the fifth full-length release (in addition to one EP) of Cattaneo’s 11-year solo recording career. Since 2015, she has been a three-time Kerrville (TX) New Folk finalist, won the 2018 CT Folk Festival, and been nominated in each of the past four years by the Boston Music Awards: in 2018, 2019, and 2020 for Americana Artist of the Year, and in 2021 for Folk Artist of the Year as half – along with Paul Hansen of The Grownup Noise – of the duo Honest Mechanik. All of these mentions of folk and Americana should not distract from the fact that she has also more than just dabbled in country, blues, and rock.

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In addition to working in background and foreground roles with countless Boston area musicians, she spent four years in the early aughts writing songs for Nashville country artists.

Topping off all of this is the fact that the New Jersey native recently retired after 20 years as a songwriting professor at Berklee College of Music, where she had previously enrolled as a student at age 30 after leaving her job in the advertising department of a New York City TV station.

This fascinatingly multifaceted musician and individual – whom I had the pleasure of interviewing in 2015 and 2019 – will showcase her new material and revisit her back catalog at an all-acoustic album release show hosted by The Burren on March 3.

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