‘Courtyard’: The song Katy J Pearson wishes she had written
There’s a stark simplicity to the worlds that Katy J Pearson creates within her songs. The Bristol-based singer-songwriter has now released three albums’ worth of material that eschews complexity in favour of taking the most basic elements and embellishing them with subtle production flourishes and chord progressions that many other writers might wish they’d been savvy enough to have come up with themselves.
But when other songwriters envy the majesty of your work, you have to ask the question of who it is that even they look up to for inspiration and cite as examples of writers they wish they could emulate. For a feature with Fred Perry Subculture, Pearson expressed a fondness for country legend Bobbie Gentry’s classic track ‘Courtyard’, revealing that it was an example of a song she wished she could have written herself.
Despite their careers having taken vastly different directions due to the gap in time between them and the other influences that they take on board, there are some definite similarities to the ways Gentry and Pearson go about writing straightforward but captivating melodies. While Bobbie Gentry is often cited as a hero of country music, her sound actually transcended the traditional sound of the genre to incorporate elements of folk and pop from the era.
In this sense, Pearson takes a number of cues from Gentry in how she blends elements of the same genres while inflecting her sound with modern flourishes. There are however notable artists from the past that she notes as being big influences on her sound or having had an impact on how she approaches songwriting, mentioning her love for the likes of Vashti Bunyan and Carole King at various points.
‘Courtyard’ stands out as one of Bobbie Gentry’s most stripped-back compositions, with a soft touch being applied to the guitars, bells and vocals throughout as she describes the tranquil environment of the titular setting that was built for her. These are some of the same delicate touches that Pearson has also made a name for herself for being able to effortlessly conjure up in her songs, with early singles like ‘Hey You’ being a notable example of how she doesn’t require too many elements in her music to allow it to stand out.
Something else that the two have in common is an immediately recognisable vocal style that is hard to replicate. While there is arguably more warmth and soul to Gentry’s voice, especially on other hits of hers such as ‘Fancy’, Pearson is distinctive in her own way and uses this to great effect to carry the expertly crafted melodies she writes. On her latest LP, Someday, Now, she even plays around with altering the register of her vocals, yet it is still possible to instantly identify that she is the artist behind it.
It’s hardly surprising to hear that Pearson is a fan of Bobbie Gentry and this song in particular when their work is played side by side, but her work doesn’t directly appropriate the styles and techniques on display in ‘Courtyard’ and instead uses its brilliance as a reference point from which she can skillfully craft her own refreshing spin on it.
