Categorizing an artist like Baby Dee is akin to cat herding. As soon as you think you’ve got it figured out everything falls apart in one glorious outburst.

This Cleveland native launched her career as a harpist in a bear costume on the streets of New York while studying Gregorian chant and the music of the Renaissance.

Less than a decade and a few side-show gigs ago, Baby Dee made her way back home to Cleveland. There she met up with producers Bonnie Prince Billy and Matt Sweeney, who urged Dee away from her trademark harp and towards the piano for her acclaimed album, Safe Inside the Day. The resulting songs burrow into the hard terrain of Dee's Cleveland childhood and then reflect on the unusual twists and turns of her adult life. In that process, she manages to grow a kind of sinewy, deceptively simple poetry that matches her fragile emotional core with bursts of toughness, joy and artistic fearlessness.

Following the overwhelming response to Safe Inside the Day in February 2008, the unique Baby Dee returns with Book of Songs in spring 2010. It will be released by UK indie-of-repute Tin Angel (home to a wide ranging roster that includes Devon Sproule and Polar Bear) and Drag City in the US. What was telling about the response to Safe Inside the Day was the purity of reaction. The back story (let’s face it, Baby Dee is the epitome of the phrase), never overshadowed the fact that she gives everything and that is what connects with critics and audience alike.

Baby Dee website • myspace

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