Spotlight On: BETH ORTON

ABOUT THIS WEEK’S SHERO IN THE SPOTLIGHT:
(radio hour featured interview and podcast guest)

There are just some artists that you remember hearing for the first time. Or at least, how their music hit different. And chances are that like me, it was like that when you discovered the music of British singer-songwriter and producer Beth Orton. Her 1996 U.S. debut Trailer Park, which earned her two BRIT Award nominations, and went gold in the U.K., sounded like nothing else we had heard before. Blending folk, electronica, and trip hop sensibilities was - and still is - an intoxicating combination with Beth Orton’s voice and songs. A sound that has its roots in some of her earliest work with William Orbit and The Chemical Brothers, and first recorded on a little-known 1993 album called Superpinkymandy. Her 1999 follow up, Central Reservation even further accelerated Beth's career, earned her a BRIT Award, and is now widely considered one of the best of the decade. Four more incredible albums followed - Daybreaker in 2002, Comfort of Strangers in 2006, the more stripped back 2012 album Sugaring Season, and then the pendulum swung more purely electronic with Kidsticks in 2016. In the midst of it all, Beth married musician Sam Amidon, became a mother to two children, and began a film acting career. And after six years, September of 2022 saw the release of her critically acclaimed eighth studio album, Weather Alive, Beth Orton’s most fully realized album to date, also her first self-produced, which landed on every year end best of list. I am thrilled to welcome Beth Orton as this week’s SHERO in the Spotlight. 

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