A gorgeous debut album and a fresh new voice - meet Beth Goldwater

By Beth Goldwater

When I was in my early twenties I started writing songs. I landscaped a golf course one summer, preferring the act of physical labor and a tangible sense of accomplishment to a waitressing gig at the club house. My days began at five, finished by three, and were filled with sweat, cut grass, mowers and marlboros. I was often sent out with a walking mower to do the sensitive grass on the greens and tees, as I lacked weight enough required for the riding mowers, so I'd walk in my steel tipped Carolina's, singing my heart out whilst engulfed and protected by the buzzing of the blades.

I sang Tori Amos, Led Zeppelin, Indigo Girls and Johnny Cash. I sang John Denver and Prince, Peter Gabriel and the Police. I sang every song I'd ever heard and then sang them again ad nauseaum... that is, until I heard songs of my own. I wrote them a cappella as I could not play an instrument, but my musical mind heard the melodies and remembered the key.

performing at HMAC in Harrisburg, PA  on May 4th, 2012

Visiting a friend in the mountains later that summer, I inconveniently fell in love with an amazing musician. He had perfect pitch, a mastery of guitar, grit in his voice, and a girlfriend. But I sang him my songs. I sang my songs, hoping like a Siren, he would crash upon my shores and never be sated elsewhere. He heard the chords and grew bones under my flesh, and those songs ran and ran, arms outstretched, head thrown back toward the sky.

His band was called for a gig at the shore, a big deal for mountain boys, and I was brought along. We road tripped through a flat tire and oppressive traffic; my steel tip resting on the side view mirror, the inside of my thigh tanning from the summer sun. That night they played to a vacation crowd, and we celebrated by running into the surf in our underwear, clothes left mounded like horse shoe crab shells along the sand. The waves were rough, the salt stinging my eyes as it sprayed from the force of hitting my pelvis. There were maybe eight of us in total, screaming and laughing, wishing someone had remembered a damn towel. 

But then, magic happened. 

We saw the flash first, the thick clouds backlit by angry yellow light, a painting I'd seen about a storm in an english harbor immediately called to mind. The thunder cracked and cleaved my solar plexus, reiterating to us all that we were playthings for those gods on Mt Olympus, extraneous and replaceable. Scooping up our clothes, we hobbled into cut offs, pulling shivering wet limbs through t-shirts one arm at a time. And we ran as the heavens opened upon us, drenching everything in sheets of warm water. Rivulets painted a Pollock as they sluiced down the dunes, the streets flooded to our knees as we descended the boards. Everyone ran to the hotel, knees lifting out of the water, hair hanging like the ropes of a wet setter, but I couldn't leave. I couldn't leave the magic that I was certain had happened for me.

And I ran.
 

I ran, feeling my bones under my flesh, arms outstretched, my face thrown back toward the sky.

 

Beth Goldwater's debut solo album, Transparent is now available on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/beth-goldwater/id511675120

it's also available on CD Baby http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bethgoldwater 

 

Beth performing her new single Mad (about you)