Influenced by American poet ee cummings, lang uses all lower case letters in her name, but she was originally Katherine Dawn Lang, the youngest of a family of six (two older sisters, an older brother and her parents). Her early life hinted at several paths, such as being an Olympic volleyball athlete, but it was during a college stint in Red Deer, Alta, that lang became mesmerized by the late Patsy Cline and new that her future was in music.
And, like any good hurricane, lang’s presence in the Canadian (and later international) music scene shook up the landscape like no else could have hoped to. The artist left Red Deer and moved back to Edmonton with her band, the Reclines (named, as you’ve probably guessed, after Patsy Cline). There’s an urban myth that lang, earlier in her career, caused a ruccus in Nashville by claiming to be the reincarnation of Patsy Cline (many Grand Ole Opry regulars were not impressed).
Her music, however, was nothing like Patsy Cline’s and it earned her the singular title “Country Punk”. She has always noted that this had more to do with her clothing than her music (poverty inspired her mother to fashion clothing from old drapes and anything else they could recycle). She described her music as being more country pop, and her first album “A Truly Western Experience” (1984) and the album song “Hanky-Panky” completely fit her description.
The reclines would follow this with a second and third album, “Angel With a Lariat” (1987) and “Absolute Torch and Twang” (1989), but it was lang’s 1988 album “Shadowland” and the similarly titled single that introduced her as a solo act and moved her away from country music into pop. These years weren’t without controversy, though.
The artist has always been a vocal champion of important causes and an advertisement discouraging the consumption of beef led to her estrangement from her hometown, Concord. When she later came out publicly as being gay, the Nashville music scene rejected her out of hand. Nothing can stop a hurricane, though, and lang continued to blaze her way through the music scene with grammy and other nominations falling before her like dominoes.
More recent years have seen lang pair up with industry icons such as Roy Orbison and Elton John, venture into acting (appearances on the tv show “Ellen” and in movies) and earn the admiration of her peers. Her cover of a Leonard Cohen song, “Hallelujah”, is considered a classic and her performance of the song at the 2005 Juno Awards in Canada resulted in a standing ovation (from country and pop stars, and the entire audience). She now considers herself retired but hasn’t ruled out a future return to the spotlight, if and when her “muse” should reappear.