Beth Waggoner Patterson is an Irishfolk and Celtic musician and singer, based in New Orleans, Louisiana. She combines traditional Irish, Celtic and folk ballads with Cajun, world-beat, and progressive rock influences and her own creative songwriting.
History
A native of Lafayette, Louisiana, Patterson began her professional career in her teens as a classical oboist and a Cajun bass player. She spent a year studying traditional Irish music and ethnomusicology at University College Cork in Ireland, where she began to experiment with musical fusion. She later finished her bachelor's degree in Music Therapy from Loyola University New Orleans. Patterson cites the "progressive rock" band Rush as a major musical influence. Patterson was a founding member of the ensemble the Poor Clares, who debuted in 2003 at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival to rave reviews. The Poor Clares' albums include Change of Habit and Songs for Midwinter, distributed nationally by Centaur Records. Patterson released her first four solo albums on the Little Blue Men Records label, including two studio productions, the somewhat more traditionally-oriented but still musically eclectic Hybrid Vigor, the world-beat and progressive-rock-influenced Take Some Fire, and the 2005 live album, Caught in the Act. Her 2009 release, On Better Paths, is the most daring, crossing boundaries of form and genre even further. The recording received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album. After leaving Little Blue Men Records, Patterson continued to record solo albums. She has also played on and produced other albums, including Orin by the French Breton progressive-folk group TornaoD:fr:TornaoD. She has appeared on over one hundred and seventy recordings. Patterson was a regular performer at O'Flaherty's Irish Pub in New Orleans's famed French Quarter, until the Pub closed when Hurricane Katrina hit at the end of August 2005. Patterson has since been playing regularly at other New Orleans venues, particularly the Kerry Irish Pub. She has also toured in Australia & New Zealand, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, and Ireland, as well as much of the United States. She is especially a favorite of Celtic music fans in the Washington, D.C. area. Starting in 2013 into 2018, "Bad Beth & Beyond", Beth Patterson's bawdy and profane alter ego, performed in the French Quarter. "Bad Beth" used the Irish bouzouki, just as Patterson does, while singing risque originals and covers. "Bad Beth & Beyond" released the album 2 Deep in 2013 and the single "My Therapist Thinks You're an Asshole" in 2018. Patterson, singing and bouzouki, and her husband Josh Paxton, on piano, perform as the duo ZoüKeys, as of 2017-2019. Also as of 2019, Patterson performs solo, and with the Round Pegs Duo, the Round Pegs 3 Piece Duo, a duo with Patrick O'Flaherty, New Orleans Steamcog Orchestra, as a bouzouki or English horn player, etc.
Instruments
Patterson's preferred instrument is the Irish bouzouki, a teardrop-shaped eight-string instrument of Greek origin that became popular in Irish music in the 1960s. She plays a 10-string bouzouki as well. Patterson uses Infiniti oboe reeds, D'Addario strings, and an Ebow string driver.
Other media
Patterson's film soundtrack credits include the motion pictures Lucinda's Spell, One Eyed King, and most recently Mike Judge's Extract, starring Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, and Ben Affleck. Patterson was mentioned in three of the Griffen McCandles series of novels written by science fiction/fantasy authors Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye: Dragons Wild, Dragons Deal, and Dragons Run. An entire chapter of Dragons Run takes place at a fictional Patterson concert. Patterson began writing fiction in 2012. She has contributed to twenty four anthologies and published her first novel The Wild Harmonic in 2016.
