Karen McNatt Found Her Voice and Her Biggest Fan

Karen McNatt feared performing for years, but finally got her courage up to sing her songs at open mics. She is now a songwriter and recording artist and performs with her husband Don McNatt.

As Alan Jackson put it, “I was rockin’ in the cradle to the show on Saturday night.” With my mother and father both being musicians, there was no way that music of some variety would not be a major part of my life. My seven brothers and sisters all loved and played music. My older brothers and sisters were so good, they took music to a career level. But my younger sister and I were shy and intimidated by their talent and hid ours as much as we could.

My mother dying in a car accident, leaving behind 8-year-old me, my 6-year-old sister, and my 15-year-old brother cut a huge hole in our family, and me. Who knows what would have happened had she been here?

But I grew up shy and not wanting to allow anyone into the “musical dream world” I had built for myself. My Dad always would beg me to sing or play for people. I would always run and hide; sometimes there was no getting out of it and he made me. I was so nervous, I cried the whole way through it and never enjoyed performing at all. He stopped making me.

As a teenager, I began writing and singing popular music: Carole King, Elton John, Dan Fogelberg, Beatles, and found I had an ear and could play just about anything I wanted to. So I worked on that some, got married, began having babies, and ended up with five great kids. We always incorporated music into our life but never considered taking it to a career level. I lost my father at age 37; my brothers all sang at his funeral at his request.

After a divorce at 40, I could no longer persuade my strong male friends to drag around my piano from apartment to apartment. I found myself  “instrumentless” until my wonderful angel co-worker friend, Paul Gardner, bought me an electronic piano. I paid him back monetarily but could never pay him back for the favor and how it changed my life.

I began writing songs, with my first song taking me one year to write. I lived in Nashville, Tennessee, so I took advantage of that and started visiting open mikes and writers’ nights, trying to see if I could get my courage up to sing any of my songs. Until then, I had only sang and played in church and it always terrified me. Could I ever get the courage to sing my own songs for people? My older brother Brian Shaw heard my songs, thought they were good, and definitely was a huge inspiration as I watched him write a new song every day!

I began to be a lover not only of country songs, but of all good songs and I heard so many night after night at writers’ nights. Some never made it to the radio but as I listened, I began to hear a man that I considered a very good writer and seemed single and alone. I wanted to get to know him better and knew from his songs what a sensitive and loving person he must be.

We fell in love as he encouraged me; nine months later, we were married and playing writers’ nights together as he gave me that gentle confidence and push that I needed to do what I never thought I could do. He then bought me a guitar, and after six months of lessons, I was writing and playing out and fulfilling something my Momma and Daddy never got to see me do – sing and play my own songs for the public.

Now, my husband Don McNatt from Memphis and I have recorded CDs, perform at festivals, house concerts, cafes and coffee houses all across America, Germany, and England, with our own songs and a variety of classic country duets, rock, blues, and oldies, from crowds to small groups, school age to retirement home-age fans; we try to have something to entertain everyone.

I haven’t given up my dream of writing that number one song; living in Nashville you become addicted to “playing that lottery” but even if I never get that song, my life of music has been such a wonderful journey. I find myself in an awesome world where the songs and music touch and heal every aspect of my life. I am so happy that a few people along my path led me, steered me, and encouraged me to follow my heart and do the thing that makes me happy – write and sing music!

 ”When I’m feeling blue, all I have to do is sing a song or two, then I’m not so blue”!

[Note from LRG: Listen to clips of Karen's tunes here.]

Karen McNatt
Nashville, Tennessee