Katie Pruitt
A country-folk songwriter full of hard-won Southern optimism
for katie pruitt, getting a Catholic education in her conservative Johns Creek, Georgia, hometown wasn’t a ton of fun. The schools were strict; if she didn’t tuck in the shirt of her uniform, she’d be forced to eat alone, handwriting prayers during a “silent lunch.” Being closeted didn’t make things easier. “There were maybe two out people in my school. One gay guy, one gay girl, and the gay girl got so much shit. Got bullied,” Pruitt says.
She drew on experiences like these for her debut album, Expectations, a majestic LP that blends country and folk with indie rock. Pruitt, 26, writes piercing first-person lyrics about topics ranging from her sexuality and mental health to family and faith. Some memories made it directly into her songs: “Seven Hail Marys if I copped an attitude,” she sings on “Normal.”
Pruitt came out at 20, but feared telling her parents. When she finally did, it created a rift. She addresses the conflict in the staggering “Georgia”: “My father would scream, he’d scream out in rage,” she sings. “He did not want a daughter whose soul wasn’t saved.” But since then, she and her folks worked to find common ground. “They have made strides and overcome their fear and discomfort with it,” Pruitt says, “which I’m incredibly fucking proud of them for. It taught me to have some patience.”
Pruitt already had discipline. As a kid, she taught herself to play guitar by locking herself away in her room and studying John Mayer and Dave Matthews. Her nimble playing is essential to her sound, but it’s her voice you notice first. At times soft and soulful, it builds to a cathartic wail in songs like “Expectations” and “Loving Her.” “I wanted to be intentional about my moments, and not just be big the whole time,” she says. “But I love belting shit out.”
Pruitt has earned rave reviews for Expectations, and she shared a stage in March with Bob Weir for “Ramble on Rose” at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. After a tornado ripped through the city that same month, she helped soothe a shellshocked crowd at a benefit show. “There is a reverence when you are connecting with an audience in a silent room,” Pruitt says, echoes of her Catholic upbringing coming into focus. “I love the concept that there is some force, but I never quite thought it was a man floating in the sky guarding a gate. I think God is anything good.”
JOSEPH HUDAK