Catharine David has lived and worked in the Boston and Los Angeles areas. In LA, she played such venues as the Troubadour and Madam Wong's.1 Here in New England, we pick up her story when she was a singer in the band, Didi Stewart and the Amplifiers. She sang on that group's wonderful and greatly overlooked album, Begin Here (LP, Kirshner, 1982).
David opened for one of our all-time best classic rock bands, Girls' Night Out, going all the way back to some of their very earliest performances in 1983. In February 1984, Catharine David gave an opening set for a show at Ryles that featured Leslie Sterling, Didi Stewart, and Michelle Willson in a tribute to the hit songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
Catharine David's trio included, in addition to herself, Richard Gates on bass and Sheldon Mirowitz on guitar and synthesizer. For full-band performances, David added John Curtis on guitar and either Tim Jackson or Seth Pappas on drums. This larger outfit was known as Catharine and the Greats. In the mid-1980s, these ensembles were playing often at Christopher's, the Idler, Jonathan Swift's, Nightstage, Passim, and the Tam. The Greats opened larger shows at concert clubs such as the Channel.
Catharine and the Greats
David was a finalist in the WXKS Starquest contest in 1983. "The best set," wrote Joyce Millman of the Boston Phoenix, belonged to Catharine David (who has been a fixture on the Cambridge folk scene for 10 years); she had a honeyed blues voice, and it took a lot of nerve to sing an unfaltering a cappella version of Bill Withers's 'Lean on Me.'"2
"Hands on the Wheel" received regular airplay on WCAS, and David was a guest on radio programs broadcast by many Boston-area stations.
"David has been a best-kept-secret for too long, but this latest stage could be her best." So wrote Steve Morse in his April 21, 1989, Boston Globe piece.3 "Her band, called Mom Over Dad, includes guitarist Steve Thorsen, drummer David Birmingham (from Push Push) and longtime accompanist Richard Gates on bass."
Catharine David briefly sang backup for Laurie Sargent, who may still be best known for fronting the '80s band, Face to Face. An Internet search on David's name did not turn up biographical information, though we found that she has sung on albums by quite a variety of recording artists. -- Alan Lewis, 8/25/2001
1. The late Mickey O'Halloran supplied some generalizations about Catharine David's career that helped pull tegether the details we found in our clipping file.
2. Boston Phoenix, 9/13/1983.
3. It would appear that Steve Morse had a point about Catharine David being a carefully-guarded secret. The size of our clipping file on her career is disappointing to say the least. This profile would not have been possible without Mickey O.
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