Katie King - Biography

Katie King grew up in Eugene, Oregon, where she began listening to jazz records at the age of eleven. "I was in a record store when I first heard Billie Holiday; I just had to buy the album." From then on she was hooked; she earned money working in her parent's restaurant to buy more jazz records. Soon she was listening and learning from the great vocal styles of Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, and Carmen McRae. "I feel like they were my teachers," says King. "I learned from listening to the great stylists. . .they taught me, not necessarily how to sing, but how to stylize and be able to take a song and interpret in my own way."