Kate Ceberano is one of the country’s best known and loved singers. Renowned for her soulful and powerful vocal style, Kate has won nearly every entertainment award in Australia. She has released five platinum, and four gold records, selling well over 1 million albums. Kate first came to prominence during her mid-teens as the lead singer for funk band I’m Talking. Her second solo album You’ve Always Got The Blues earned her an ARIA Award for Best Female Artist. In 1989 Triple platinum selling Brave was the first album by an Australian female to reach the national No.1 spot and it produced four hit singles including Bedroom Eyes. For almost 20 years, Kate has maintained her position at the top of the Australian Music Industry. The album Nine Lime Avenue was so very well received by the public that Kate decided to make the majority of her next album So Much Beauty in a similar vein, beautiful songs that she loves with three of them her own, one of those a duet with her ‘It Takes Two’ partner and friend, AFL star Russell Robertson. (‘Never Say Never’ to a Friend). “I like singing with him. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think he was a confident singer. I don’t like singing with non-singers generally. A show is a show, but an album is a whole work. I just loved what he did.” That album was recorded quickly with producer Richard Pleasance over three busy weeks, in between all Kate’s other professional commitments and motherhood. By contrast So Much Beauty is deliberately a relaxed in-house “lounge-room” effort, recorded by Kate with her long-term front-of-house mixer, Steve and the band she’d assembled to tour Nine Lime Avenue. Also enlisted to help out on the music direction and supervision for this album was rock legend, James Black. Kate is currently based in Melbourne and will be touring nationally in August. Her new album Bittersweet is out now.