Catherine Howe - What a Beautiful Place (2007)

British singer/songwriter Catherine Howe, the youngest of five children, grew up in Halifax, in Yorkshire, but just before her 12th birthday she moved to London to attend the Corona Stage School. She studied both acting and singing there, but upon graduation at age 18 decided that she wanted to pursue only music. The voice and piano demos she recorded in CBS studios in 1969 eventually led to a contract with Reflection Records, which issued her debut album, What a Beautiful Place, in 1971. She had to wait four years for her next release, however, this time with RCA, which came in the form of Harry, whose title track won her an Ivor Novello Award for songwriting. In 1976 Silent Mother Nature came out, followed three years later by Dragonfly Days. After her agents urged her to change her style and approach to her music to sell more records, Howe retaliated by leaving the music business completely and returning home to Halifax, where she married and started a family. In 2005, Howe released Princelet Street, her first new material in over 25 years. The next year Beat Goes On reissued two of her older records compiled onto one disc, Harry/Silent Mother Nature.