Singer-songwriter
Lyric-driven Americana, rootsy acoustic rock, and folk-pop. Poetry like Joni Mitchell, twang like Lucinda Williams, and gorgeously gloomy like nobody's business.
I wrote that blurb in 2001, and I stand by it.
I'm a songwriter, singer, guitarist, photographer, writer, and graphic artist based in Ithaca, New York, USA. I've been songwriting and playing guitar since I was a pre-teen, with Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, and Leo Kottke as my guides. My solo songwriter career began when I was invited to Rosanne Cash's "Essence of Songwriting" workshops in 1997, 2000, and 2001.
I toured and recorded 4 albums between 1999 and 2007, showcased at the Durango Songwriter's Expo, NERFA, SXSW, the ROCKRGRL women in music conference Seattle, and showcases in Nashville, DC, and Atlanta. I've played up and down the east coast, going farther west from time to time. My songs and albums have earned awards and placement in TV shows and independent films.
In recent years I've performed rarely, notably in the local Joni Mitchell Tribute concerts. I designed the posters for these annual events. I continue to host the Water Street Songwriters group, which I started with a handful of friends more than twenty years ago.
Beautiful things people have said:
"Patti's new record is beautiful, her voice is so radiant, and the writing is better than ever. She is a gifted, original songwriter who delivers her songs with a clarity and strength that are quite rare." Rosanne Cash
"Patti Witten's new record, Tell the Wind, deserves an A for astute, artistic and ambitious. Her intelligent lyrics provide wordplay and imagery, while the sparse arrangements showcase her guitar skills... Tell the Wind is music for your mind, heart, and soul — tell everyone we told you so." Mare Wakefield, Performing Songwriter
"With the breadth of topic and narrative voice on Sycamore Tryst ranging from butterflies to the execution of Timothy McVeigh to the weather, Witten proves she has the sensitivity and the reach to make a cohesive record from the most important element of poetry—life." Clay Steakley, Performing Songwriter
Patti Witten's one of the sharpest tools we've run across in the indie toolbox. She's got a genuine and convincing voice, as a writer and a singer." Frank Goodman, puremusic.com
Patti Witten's previous albums were already good. But with Sycamore Tryst there is no doubt that she can be promoted to the major league of singer-songwriters." Jo Didderen, Heaven
"If her dreamy country-pop sound [on Prairie Doll] seems perpetually about to slide into a cover of Chris Isaak's Wicked Game,'can you really complain? Anyway, if Isaak wants a monopoly on warm slide licks and shuffly drums, he'll have to fight Witten for it, and her gorgeously gloomy, almost Waits-ian song structures promise a pitched battle." DOWNLOAD