Moffatt and Flores team up to perform in Temecula

By: CHARLES HAND - For The Californian | Wednesday, February 6, 2008 1:18 PM PST ∞

Katy Moffatt remembers a childhood home filled with classical music and Broadway show tunes. Why, then, she should become a country singer and composer she cannot really say.

"Maybe I just absorbed it," she said of her Dallas upbringing. "Something must have seeped in."

Moffatt will join fellow musician Rosie Flores on the Old Town Temecula Community Theater stage Friday, an ironic pairing since Flores was born in California and now lives in Texas while Moffatt was born in Texas and now lives in California.

Moffatt and Flores have played together off and on for a decade and a half, though their joint performances are relatively rare. They will perform a mix of their original work and others' tunes in no particular genre or order. While country is the genre in which Moffatt has come closest to mainstream success, Moffatt said she has never left behind the eclectic mix of rock and folk and pop that has driven her all her life.

"I honestly don't care where the songs come from," Moffatt said. "A great song is a great song. I'm driven by the song itself. It's about my connection with the music."

In her country incarnation, she won a nomination as the Academy of Country Music's Female Vocalist of the Year in 1985.

But probably nothing stands in greater contrast to the rest of her career than one of her early achievements, a part in the cult classic "Billy Jack," a movie that spawned the Coven hit "One Tin Soldier." Moffatt played one of the students in the school.

But Moffatt said her tastes have always been eclectic. Just because she was raised in Texas doesn't mean she grew up liking country music. In fact, country may have been the musical genre that interested her least.

"I studiously avoided country music," she said.

It wasn't until Marty Robbins created one of the first country-rock crossover hits, "El Paso," that it held any interest for Moffatt. Even then she became not a country music fan, but a Marty Robbins fan. And a fan of "El Paso," a classic song of tragic romance with a combination of powerful lyrics backed by quality music.

"The imagery was wonderful," she said.

That combination of lyrics and music would become the theme of her musical life, the force that still drives her original compositions and her taste for those of others.

Though Moffatt has yet to hit the big time with either her own music or her rendition of someone else's, she has developed a following, a fan base that All Music Guide describes as a cult following. That following has continued through the release of multiple albums, none like any of the others.

"Each record has been different," she said. "I have a lot of respect for the audience that has stuck with me over the years."

That is no small achievement, Moffatt said, citing the huge difference between what she describes as a very basic style in "Walking on the Moon," followed by the pure country "Child Bride" six months later. "It was a bit of whiplash," she said.

But the fans keep buying her records and showing up for her concerts. "I am glad to just be able to do what I love and make a living at it," Moffatt said of her career, which has been just about as eclectic as her music.

She tried college in Santa Fe ---- which is how she got the part in "Billy Jack" ---- but decided to return to Texas before she finished. She took a shot at Austin and found there camaraderie among the musicians who passed through that surprised and welcomed her. As the troubadours came and went, she heard tales of a place called Colorado where the musical tastes seemed to fit her style. And, even if they didn't she said, "Colorado was a place to go that was not Texas."

So, she gave it a try, first in Aspen where, she said, there was no detectable interest in seeing her perform, then in Boulder, where she ended up after taking a wrong turn on her way out of Aspen. She spent eight years in Boulder before deciding it was "not as welcoming a music scene as Austin." She decided to return to Texas.

But, just before she left, she got a gig and the world began to notice. Her career began to pick up some tempo, but somehow the momentum was lost and she decided once again to head out, this time for Los Angeles. "I felt like I'd hit a low ceiling," Moffatt said.

In California, she seemed to pick up the thread again. She signed with Columbia Records and was finding an audience on the underground FM radio stations that were cropping up just about the same time.

Once again, though, the momentum was somehow lost and the big time with it.

But that does not stop Moffatt, who is happy doing what she feels she was destined to do.

"I knew early on that music was going to be a priority to me," she said.

Even as she saw a lot of her girlfriends break away to get married when they hit their late 20s so they could have children, Moffatt knew she could not give up music for domestic life. And she hasn't.

Katy Moffatt and Rosie Flores

When: 8 p.m. Friday

Where: Old Town Temecula Community Theater, 42051 Main St., Temecula

Tickets: $20

Info: (866) 653-8696

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